Greenwich University hosted a small event called "I'm a Mathematician: Get Me Out of Here!".Although the event started at 10:30, I had to account for the time it takes for me to actually get up from my slumber, get ready and make my hour and a half journey there.
My day started at 07:30, blessed with toast in bed as my mum knows that food is one of the only things I'll wake up for.
put pressure on the start time. For example, City, University of London's
email had said; "...you should report by 09:30am", and Greenwich's
email said; "The day begins at 10:30am".
My anxious mind would encourage me to aim for an arrival time of at
least half an hour before those stated (just in case I got lost) - however,
both universities had a 15-30 minute registration slot, so although I'd broken
out into a sweat both days trying to speed walk my way so that I was on time
for wherever I was supposed to be, there was no need to.
My advice?
- Plan your route the night before
- Write it down in a little notepad, with potential other routes
- Give yourself time to a) get ready, b) get there on time and c) allow for missed trains and getting lost
- When you're hunting down your university, take your time. Breathe. Check the map, and double check it
- It's okay if you get lost. Everybody I spoke to today had struggled finding their way in. It's not the end of the world if you do run late - though scary and embarrassing at first, no one will remember.
You're still a cool bean x
After City's rather disappointing taster day, I wasn't necessarily looking forward to this one. So far, a lot of what I've experienced has been very similar and bland - university stats, how university teaches, nothing new to mathematics. When City had presented us with a sheet of problems that required no new skills, but were just time consuming, I was frustrated. To me, it felt like a waste of time. Perhaps that's an immature view, but especially after today, I'm sure they could've led their session in a far more rewarding way.
Noel-Ann Bradshaw introduced us to areas of mathematics we may not have come across before - or areas that they could lead into. I felt quite chuffed with myself because I know that Cryptology isn't necessarily an area the majority of mathematicians my age know about or have considered. However, the short presentation made me realise I shouldn't be so certain in what I want to go into. Mentioning many areas such as Simulation (Operational Research), Differential Equations (and the Tacoma Bridge), Group Theory (an example being the Rubik's Cube), Error Correcting Codes (used in Internet Security) and the one that caught my most intense attention: Topology.
As much as I would love to talk about it and explain it to you, I have absolutely no idea how it works nor what it's used for (I think it's something to do with design?) - all I can say is that the lecture theater was filled with faces full of awe. Below is a video with some of the examples shown:
Erwin George showed us some tips and tricks in Quick Calculations - if you pick a number between 0-100, cube it, and tell me the cubed number, I will be able to tell you your original number, given a couple of minutes or so as I'm still newbie. Again, we were all in awe as we shouted out six digit numbers and he replied with the original number almost instantly. He gave us around 7 minutes to try and figure out how he was doing it, and once those 7 minutes were up, he asked for anybody's suggestions.
This was MY moment guys.
I noticed the numbers from 1-9 cubed all have different unit values. For example, 5^3 is 125, the unit value being 5. I spoke my observation, Erwin beamed a great big smile and told me I was right! I had figured out half of the problem - whole or not, simply speaking in front of a lecture theater was rattling for me. I'm not sure which I'm most proud of - solving that little half, or volunteering my idea in front of people.
Tony Mann discussed 'The Prisoners' Dilemma: maths goes wrong?' - and though I found this slightly less interesting as I had covered Game Theory and this particular problem before, I hadn't realised it was so complex. Additionally, having only looked at zero-sum games with no context, it was captivating to see examples of non zero-sum games in the real world.
We were then introduced to Mathematics at Greenwich, and though it wasn't part of the talk itself, I felt that what made their university stand out amongst the rest was the fact that they included the Maths Society's magazine, "Prime Times" in with their goodie-bag.
After this, we were merged into groups and given tricky questions, some using logic, some using mathematics but applied in a slightly different way, and some that left us feeling brain-dead. Though City had somewhat attempted this, what made Greenwich's activity more engaging was the fact it was supposed to be thought about, but not necessarily take you ages to solve. An example of one of the questions included:
"Tom wants to send Sally an expensive ring through the mail because they live thousands of miles apart. The only problem is that everything sent through the mail is stolen unless there is a lock put on it. Both Tom and Sally have plenty of locks and keys but they don't have any of the same locks or keys.
How can Tom send Sally the ring without it getting stolen?"
Enjoy solving that one!
To conclude the day, we were awarded certificates which was a very sweet touch.
Thank you Greenwich for the lovely day!
