Send us Fan Mail A father, two of his children, and a family friend — all mathematicians — made progress on a long-standing problem in group theory by coming together at the Isaac Newton Institute. Listen as Plus Magazine editors Rachel Thomas and Marianne Freiberger interview Roman Sauer, and Uri, Saar, and Shaked Bader to find out more about their research and paths to mathematics. The Operators, Groups, and Graphs programme was in residence at the INI from July to December 2025: https://www.n...
May 13, 2026•27 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Send us Fan Mail We talk with Professor Clemency Montelle all about her work decoding the mathematics of ancient manuscripts. In a wide-ranging discussion, we cover some of the concepts that first arose in India, hear about a mentor who hosted meals based on ancient recipes, and learn how important cultural and historical context is for the questions that mathematicians ask. While she was at the INI, Professor Montelle delivered the Kirk Lecture for the Modern History of Mathematics Programme , ...
Apr 24, 2026•37 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Send us Fan Mail Imagine if your doctor had a digital model of your heart, personalised to you and updated with your latest medical information. This isn't science fiction – this revolutionary healthcare is being tested now. In this podcast we speak to Steven Niederer , who leads the CVDNet project developing and testing these ideas, and his colleague Richard Wilkinson , from the University of Nottingham. Richard is one of the organisers of the long research programme, Representing, calibrating ...
Nov 24, 2025•25 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Living Proof , we speak with Céline and Frank about their book: Why nobody understands quantum physics - and everyone needs to know something about it . They share insights into their writing journey and how each of their backgrounds contributed to the final project. We met Céline and Frank at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge, where Frank is co-organising the research programme Quantum field theory with boundaries, impurities, ...
Nov 12, 2025•27 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Living Proof podcast we're delighted to meet Moustapha Fall . Moustapha is the Center President of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Senegal and winner of a prestigious Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries . He also plays an important role on the international stage as Member-at-Large of the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union . Moustapha talks to us about about the amazing insti...
Oct 22, 2025•25 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Send us Fan Mail Earlier this year the the anomalous mathematical patterns sci-art competition attracted some jaw-dropping entries . The competition was held in connection to the Stochastic systems for anomalous diffusion research programme which took place at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI) in Cambridge last year. In this episode of Living Proof, we talk to Codina Cotar , who co-organised the INI programme and helped put on the competition. Codina explains the maths w...
Oct 15, 2025•23 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Living Proof, we speak with renowned filmmaker Ekaterina Eremenko about her film "Portrait of Olga Ladyzhenskaya" , which tells the story of the legendary Russian mathematician celebrated for her groundbreaking work in partial differential equations and fluid dynamics. Ekaterina shares what inspired her to bring Ladyzhenskaya’s life to the screen, explores the creative process behind the film, and reflects on the powerful intersection of art and science. The f...
Jul 09, 2025•17 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the latest episode of Living Proof , our podcast produced in collaboration with Plus.maths.org – you can find all the content from the collaboration here . On May 30th 2024 seminar goers at Princeton University witnessed a thrilling moment. The mathematician Zhouli Xu of the University of California, LA, announced that, together with colleagues he had sorted out the 126th dimension. Not in general, but in regards to a problem that has taunted mathematicians since the ...
Jul 02, 2025•34 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the latest episode of Living Proof , our podcast produced in collaboration with Plus.maths.org In this podcast we hope to give you some interesting information. This information is encoded in terms of 0s and 1s – the classical bits in your computer or phone. But what if instead we were using a quantum computer? Then we'd be dealing with quantum bits, or qubits , opening up exciting new possibilities. And quantum information theory is the area of mathematics that explo...
Jun 11, 2025•22 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the latest episode of Living Proof , our podcast produced in collaboration with Plus.maths.org In this episode we spoke to Sarah Hart, a mathematician interested in not just the maths itself, but also its connections to other areas of literature and art. She's done an amazing number of things throughout her career — from research in pure mathematics and heading up a maths department, to being the first woman Gresham Professor of Geometry and President of the British S...
Apr 23, 2025•25 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the latest episode of Living Proof , our podcast produced in collaboration with Plus.maths.org In this episode, we dive into the importance of communicating mathematics to a broader audience, a growing priority within the maths community. Sara Khan, Communications Manager at the Isaac Newton Institute, shares how the INI is championing mathematics communication. Then, Rachel Thomas and Marianne Freiberger, editors of Plus.maths.org, revisit their conversation with Han...
Apr 09, 2025•29 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the latest episode of Living Proof , our podcast produced in collaboration with Plus.maths.org In this episode, we talked to famous Maths historian, David E. Rowe , who provided scientific advice for the play Diving into math with Emmy Noether, which was staged as part of the Modern History of Mathematics research programme and the Inclusivity in the Mathematical Sciences workshop at the INI. We dive deep into the life and work of Emmy Noether, and about what it's lik...
Apr 08, 2025•29 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Send us Fan Mail In the latest episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speaks to Aleks Mijatovic (Warwick, Alan Turing Institute) and Codina Cotar (UCL) about the Stochastic systems for anomalous diffusion programme. They’ll be speaking about the theme and challenges of their highly interdisciplinary six-month research project, but the conversation starts with comments on some truly remarkable headwear… Stochastic systems for anomalous diffusion programme: https://www.newton.ac.uk/event/ssd/ Submit a...
Oct 07, 2024•29 min•Ep. 63
Send us Fan Mail In the latest episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speaks to Professors Lionel Mason (Oxford) and Maciej Dunajski (Cambridge) of the Twistor Theory programme ( https://www.newton.ac.uk/event/twt ). Over the 30 minutes, they share their experiences of the scale and challenges of this far-reaching topic that - amongst other things - aims to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. 00:00 - Introduction 00:42 - Welcome 01:48 - “I have been excited about this programme for 40 ye...
Oct 03, 2024•30 min•Ep. 62
Send us Fan Mail In the latest episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speaks to Professors Mark Blyth and Sasha Korobkin , organisers of the INI Satellite Programme “ The mathematics of multiphase flows with applications ” (https://www.newton.ac.uk/event/mfa/). In the conversation, Mark and Sasha explain the programme’s research themes and share their insights into the challenges and rewards of organising an INI programme at your home institution - in their case the University of East Anglia in Norw...
Sep 25, 2024•33 min•Ep. 61
Send us Fan Mail In the latest episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speaks to Professor Kevin Buzzard of Imperial College London. Inspired by a lecture given by Thomas Hales at INI’s Big Proof ( https://www.newton.ac.uk/event/bpr/ ) programme in 2017, Kevin has spent the past seven years working alongside fellow enthusiasts on the “Maths Library” project. In this conversation he explains the project in detail, touching on why the programming language of Lean was chosen, and how it interacts with h...
Sep 25, 2024•56 min•Ep. 60
Send us Fan Mail Established in 2021, the INI Postdoctoral Fellowships in Mathematics scheme enables “exceptional early career researchers in the mathematical sciences” to gain “experience, independence and new connections on their way to a successful academic career”. In this episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speaks to Dr Luke Davis to learn about his journey through mathematics so far, and to find out what being awarded this Fellowship – which involves spending six months on the INI research ...
Aug 30, 2024•19 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel is joined by three guests: Daniel Gardham (Surrey), Katherine Benjamin (Oxford), and Francisco de Melo Virissimo (LSE), all of whom won medals as podium finishers at the 2024 STEM for Britain awards at the UK parliament in March. The conversation covers their success in the highly competitive poster exhibition, how it felt to present their mathematical research to politicians and the public, and what the future holds for each of them fr...
Apr 24, 2024•33 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Send us Fan Mail Now in its third year, the INI Postdoctoral Fellowships in Mathematics scheme enables “exceptional early career researchers in the mathematical sciences” to gain “experience, independence and new connections on their way to a successful academic career”. In this episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speak to Dr Swapnil Jaideo (SJ) Kole to learn about her journey through mathematics so far, and to find out what being awarded this Fellowship – which involves spending three months on ...
Mar 15, 2024•8 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Send us Fan Mail From 8-12 January 2024, the " Equivariant methods in geometry " took place in INI's main seminar room in Cambridge, UK. So far, so routine procedure. However, this workshop had the unique twist of being run in parallel with a team at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Linked by audio-visual streaming connections, the two events were remotely connected and operated as one throughout the week. Following successful interactions across continents (on top of the usual coll...
Mar 07, 2024•22 min•Season 1Ep. 63
Send us Fan Mail In this short episode, Dan Aspel speaks to Professor Ben Allanach (Cambridge, CERN) about his talk " The Force Awakens: Quantum Collisions " which he'll be delivering in INI's main seminar room for this year's Cambridge Festival . Taking place on Saturday 23 March at 11:00, the talk is in fact now sold out . However, if you'd like to join the waiting list for any cancelled tickets you can do so here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-force-awakens-quantum-collisions-tickets-810...
Feb 14, 2024•10 min•Season 1Ep. 62
Send us Fan Mail Episode published 30/01/24 In February 2022, Olena Domanska and her family left their home in Ukraine. The ongoing Russian invasion has meant that they are yet to return to the world they left behind. However, through her engagement with INI's Solidarity for mathematicians programme, she and her family are currently based near the University of Manchester where she is continuing her work on neural networks "at the intercept of artificial intelligence and differential equations"....
Jan 30, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Send us Fan Mail Episode published: 20/11/23 Thanks to the generous support of the Simons Foundation, the INI-Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Mathematics is now in its second year of enabling “exceptional early career researchers in the mathematical sciences” to gain “experience, independence and new connections on their way to a successful academic career”. In this episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speak to Dr Samuel Stark to learn about his journey through mathematics so far, and to find o...
Nov 20, 2023•5 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Send us Fan Mail Episode published: 10/10/23 Thanks to the generous support of the Simons Foundation, the INI-Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Mathematics is now in its second year of enabling “exceptional early career researchers in the mathematical sciences” to gain “experience, independence and new connections on their way to a successful academic career”. In this episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speak to Dr Zhao-He Watse Sybesma to learn about his journey through mathematics so far, and ...
Oct 10, 2023•11 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Send us Fan Mail Episode published: 09/10/23 Thanks to the generous support of the Simons Foundation, the INI-Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Mathematics is now in its second year of enabling “exceptional early career researchers in the mathematical sciences” to gain “experience, independence and new connections on their way to a successful academic career”. In this episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speak to Dr Paul Pruzina to learn about his journey through mathematics so far, and to find o...
Oct 09, 2023•5 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Send us Fan Mail In the latest episode, Dan Aspel speaks to Simon Cox and Adil Mughal - organisers of the 2023 programme " GeomPack: Geometry and packing in material structure and biology ". The second ever INI satellite programme, GeomPack is being held at Aberystwyth University in its 150th year. Simon and Adil explain the joys and challenges of organising such an event, as well as the fascinating research which has seen them and the participants tackle "some of the knottiest problems in mathe...
Sep 08, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Send us Fan Mail Episode recorded: 17/07/23 In this episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel speaks to Coralie Colmez , author of the young adult novel " The Irrational Diary of Clara Valentine " - recently chosen as one of Chalkdust magazine 's "books of the year". A Cambridge maths graduate herself, it was Coralie's ambition to write a story rich in both mathematics and mystery - with the Chalkdust review highlighting that "the explanations of the solutions to these puzzles are blended into the stor...
Jul 18, 2023•17 min•Season 1Ep. 56
Send us Fan Mail Episode recorded: 07/07/23 In this episode of Living Proof, Dan Aspel and Marianne Freiberger are joined by Tomer Schlank (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Jeremy Hahn (MIT). Working alongside Robert Burklund and Ishan Levy, Tomer and Jeremy's recently announced a disproof of Ravenel's telescope conjecture at the June 2023 INI workshop "A panorama of homotopy theory". Here, they explain why this was such a significant announcement, and what effect it has had on the field of h...
Jul 07, 2023•24 min•Season 1Ep. 55
Send us Fan Mail The 23rd of June 2023 marks exactly thirty years since Sir Andrew Wiles announced his historic first proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem . He did so at the Isaac Newton Institute, during the culmination of three days of special lectures, delivered as part of the June 1993 L-functions and arithmetic programme - one of the first research meetings to take place at the recently founded INI. To mark this happy occasion, we - together with our colleagues at Plus magazine and the Maths on t...
Jun 22, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 54
Send us Fan Mail This year, and more specifically during the week of 20 March, the Newton Gateway to Mathematics will be celebrating its 10th anniversary. A "knowledge intermediary for the mathematical sciences" and the "impact initiative" of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the Gateway has spent the past decade connecting mathematical research with industry, businesses, the public sector and other scientific disciplines. To mark this happy occasion - and to look back at the...
Mar 17, 2023•16 min•Season 1Ep. 53
