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Sir David Wallace, Director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical
Sciences, the N.M. Rothschild & Sons Professor of Mathematical Sciences and
Master of Churchill College at Cambridge University
Thursday, March 18
11:30am – 1:00pm
“Five Millenia of Mathematics and its Applications.”
Sir David will discuss the origins of mathematics in the earliest civilizations of
Sumer and Babylon, which is now Iraq, over 5,000 years ago. He will provide
examples of the ways the application of mathematics were integral to the
development of these and modern civilizations. The discussion will be
illustrated with examples from some of the research programmes at the
Newton Institute, spanning astronomy to zoology, including climate modelling,
elementary particle theory and quantitative finance.
Webcast information is also attached.
The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences is a national and
international visitor research institute that conducts research on selected
themes in mathematics and the mathematical sciences with applications over
a wide range of science and technology. Churchill College, which Sir David
serves as Master, received its Royal Charter in 1960, is the national and
Commonwealth memorial to Sir Winston Churchill, and serves to embody his
vision of how higher education can benefit society in the modern age. Like the
thirty other colleges in Cambridge University, Churchill College is committed to
outstanding academic achievement; more than twenty of its members have
won the Nobel Prize. While it focuses especially on science, engineering and
technology, its teaching and research also reflect the intense interest in the
arts and humanities of Sir Winston himself, whose own Nobel Prize was for
literature. The college seeks to builds bridges from academe to business and
other professions. The Baker Center has twice collaborated with the Churchill
Archives Centre at Churchill College to hold international conferences – the
first about Sir Winston Churchill and the Atlantic Alliance held in Knoxville in
2006, and the second about the Legacy of the Cold War held at Cambridge
this past November. Thus, the Center is especially pleased to welcome Sir
David to UTK.
Sir David’s undergraduate and postgraduate study was in theoretical physics
at the University of Edinburgh, followed by research at Princeton University as
a Harkness Fellow. He then served as a lecturer in the Physics Department at
the University of Southampton, and was subsequently appointed as the Tait
Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Edinburgh, the Director
of Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre and Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough
University. In addition to his current professorship and positions at the
Newton Institute and Churchill College, Sir David is also a Fellow of the
Institute of Physics and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. He
has held a number of honorary positions, including Treasurer and Vice-
President of the Royal Society, and President of the Institute of Physics. He is
Chair of the Council for the Mathematical Sciences, and has served as a
member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the
Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, as an Expert to the European
Commission, and as Chair of the UK e-Science Steering Committee. He was
awarded a CBE for services to parallel computing in 1996, and was knighted in
2004 for services to UK science, technology and engineering.
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