The Cambridge Festival is an annual celebration aimed at connecting the exciting work of Cambridge academics and scientists with the wider public.

Offering “an eclectic mixture of over 350 events and activities: from panel discussions, film premieres, and self-guided walking tours, to ‘try this at home’ activities for the whole family” it is one of the most significant outreach events in the University’s calendar.

It typically takes place over a 10-day period at the end of March. On this page you will find all information regarding INI’s participation past and present.

www.festival.cam.ac.uk

YouTube playlist of all recorded INI Cambridge Festival talks


> Forthcoming events

> Past events

Prof Reidun Twarock
Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of York

Title: Viruses under the Mathematical Microscope: Deciphering the Code of Viral Geometry
Date: Saturday 26 March 2011
Time: 12.30-13.00
Venue: Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Science

Viruses, such as hepatitis and the common cold, have highly ordered protein containers that encapsulate the viral genomic material. They act as Trojan horses, transporting the genomic material inside a cell to hijack the cellular mechanism and produce new viruses. Insights in how these capsids are organised are key to understanding how viruses work and how they can be defeated. In this talk, Reidun Twarock will explore virus architecture under the mathematical microscope. We will show that symmetry plays a key role for virus structure, and that mathematical tools similar to those used in the study of Penrose tilings provide novel insights that shed new light on viral evolution and on how viruses infect their hosts.

Watch the talk

Dr Robert Hunt
Deputy Director, Isaac Newton Institute

Title: Maths at Work in the Real World
Date: Saturday 25 March 2006
Time: 12.00-13.00
Venue: Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Science

Explain how mathematics, which can sometimes seem abstract and irrelevant, is at work in our everyday lives. All around us, from tools which we use on a daily basis (such as mobile phones) through to scientific advances in medicine (such as PET scanners), are examples of how high-powered mathematics is responsible for things that we take for granted in the modern world. And maths turns up in nature in the most unexpected ways!

The talk will take a light-hearted tour around the usefulness of maths in the real world and will try to explain what the point of studying maths is anyway; concluding with a challenge to find any aspect of life, the world or the Universe which is not intimately related to maths. The talk will definitely be aimed at non-experts.

Dr Robert Hunt
Deputy Director, Isaac Newton Institute

Title: Mathematics Past, Present and Beyond
Date: Saturday 19 March 2005
Time: 11.00-12.00
Venue: Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Science

Dr Robert Hunt takes us on a whistle stop journey through mathematical ideas from the past to the present and beyond. Find out how mathematics has shaped our lives so far and how it will continue to do so in the future.

Professor Sir John Kingman
Director, Isaac Newton Institute

Title: Chance and Probability
Date: Saturday 20 March 2004
Time: 11.00-12.00
Venue: Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Science

Professor Sir John Kingman will explain how even the most unpredictable things in the world can be studied mathematically. Maths often deals with things that change in a very predictable way, like the planets going round the sun. But much in life is quite unpredictable: the weather, the stock market, football results and so on. Can maths say anything about these? The answer lies in ideas of probability, an old but rapidly developing branch of mathematics. You will not learn to predict the future, but you may be able to move the odds in your favour.

Dr Robert Hunt
Deputy Director, Isaac Newton Institute

Title: Maths at Work in the Real World
Date: Saturday 22 March 2003
Time: 16.00-17.00
Venue: Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Science

Dr Hunt will explain how mathematics, which can sometimes seem abstract and irrelevant, is at work in our everyday lives. All around us, from tools which we use on a daily basis (such as mobile phones) through to scientific advances in medicine (such as PET scanners), are examples of how high-powered mathematics is responsible for things that we take for granted in the modern world. And maths turns up in nature in the most unexpected ways! The talk will take a light-hearted tour around the usefulness of maths in the real world and will try to explain what the point of studying maths is anyway; concluding with a challenge to find any aspect of life, the world or the Universe which is not intimately related to maths. The talk will definitely be aimed at non-experts.

Suitable for ages 14+

Prof Michael Green

Title: String Theory – Tying it all up
Date: Saturday 23 March 2002
Time: 11.00-12.00
Venue: Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Science

This talk will describe the way in which string theory unifies the laws of physics and is radically altering our ideas about the nature of the universe at the smallest and largest distance scales.

Suitable for ages 16+

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