Robin Wilson

One of the joys of being on campus, or living near, is that you can get to good lectures. Inaugural lectures tend to be good. And Robin Wilson is particularly worth listening to. He is:

• now Professor of Pure Maths at the OU,
• as well as Gresham Professor of Geometry at Gresham College
• a fellow in maths at Keble College.

He's written over thirty books on:

• graph theory
• sudoku
• philately
• Gilbert & Sullivan operas
• the mathematical activities of Lewis Carroll

Yesterday he delivered his inaugural lecture on Communicating Mathematics: a historical and person journey. His lecture explored the context of communicating maths over the last 4000 years.

What is unusual in these days of PowerPoint, is that he doesn't use it! He uses handwritten transparencies, on two overhead projects. This means that the transparencies aren't photocopied in black and white, so you can see the different colours he uses to differentiate between lines, which makes reading the lines easier. And the two OHP means he can leave up one transparency while he discusses another.

Apart from the unusual presentation, whatever topic he takes, he makes interesting. This time he split his lecture into two parts: one on oral communication of maths, one on written communication. At the point where he moved from the first to the second, he demonstrated the use of maths in music. His wife and his colleague came onto the stage, then Robin and his wife played recorders to accompany the harpsichord, so they could demonstrate the pattern in the musical piece he was showing on the screen. How many lecturers play music to their audience?

I recommend watching. You can see it here.