Leading mathematician to visit University

 

Published by the Communications and Development Department

 

26 September 2003

 

Leading UK-based mathematician Professor Caroline Series will give two free lectures at the University of Canterbury next month as part of her New Zealand–wide tour as Forder Lecturer for 2003.

 

Professor Series, from the University of Warwick, is internationally known for her work in geometry and analysis which has led to the construction of algorithms that describe amazingly beautiful connected spherical shapes. These are described and illustrated in her book Indra’s Pearls, published recently by Cambridge University Press with co-authors David Mumford and David Wright.

 

The title Indra’s Pearls captures the idea from Buddhist mythology that the heaven of Indra contained a net of pearls, each of which was reflected in its neighbours, so that the whole Universe was mirrored in each pearl. This is the subject and title of her public lecture at 7.30 pm Monday 13 October in the C2 Lecture Theatre.

 

Professor Series is known for her in-depth analysis of the geometrical properties of space and objects and is currently a Professor of Mathematics at Warwick. She has been active in promoting the world-wide “Women in Mathematics” movement, has given lectures in many countries on specialist and general mathematics topics, and is active in promoting mathematics as a discipline.

 

The Forder lecturer commemorates the lifetime work of Henry Forder a former Professor of Mathematics at the University of Auckland. In 1987, by agreement between the London Mathematical Society and its New Zealand counterpart (the New Zealand Mathematical Society) an arrangement was made to have every two years a leading British mathematician tour throughout the country as a visiting speaker. Professor Series is the ninth in this sequence and the first woman to visit New Zealand as Forder Lecturer.

 

Professor Series will also speak on Why is there Hyperbolic Geometry in Dynamics? at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Rm 446, at 4.10 pm Tuesday 14 October.

 

For further information contact Professor Graeme Wake, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canterbury at

graeme.wake@canterbury.ac.nz or telephone 364 2682.