The Newton Institute is keen to measure the wide-ranging impact of its scientific programmes. To this end we have developed a series of case studies based on the specific experiences of researchers which show the significant advances made during their time at INI. These case studies highlight the breadth of impact and the pervasive value of the mathematical sciences, including economic or social benefit and influence on government policy. Over time, we hope that these case studies will become a substantial body of evidence to ensure that the Institute can demonstrate its effectiveness to funders and stakeholders. The case studies completed so far can be seen below.
A mathematical understanding of stochastic processes is essential in communications science, because a large number of users gives rise to an essentially random pattern of calls, emails, or other information sending requests, which a network has to be able to deal with.
During an interdisciplinary programme, Statistical Mechanics of Molecular and Cellular Biological Systems, at the Isaac Newton Institute Reidun Twarock, a mathematician from York, and Peter Stockley, an experimental biologist from Leeds, began to collaborate on a mathematical theory of the structure of viruses.
At the heart of computer systems such as browsers, mobile phones or chip-and-pin payment cards, is a cryptographic hash function, which is an algorithm that maps arbitrary data to relatively small numbers.
Peter Landrock grew up in Denmark and obtained his PhD in mathematics in 1974 from the University of Chicago.
Colorectal cancer, a leading cause of cancer-related death in Western countries [1], is largely preventable if precursor adenomatous polyps are detected and excised before becoming malignant.
The achievement of three programme participants during their time at INI was to obtain and prove the correctness of quantum counterparts to the Shannon formula.
Holographic duality (or the AdS/CFT correspondence), originally proposed by Maldacena in 1998, is arguably the most important theoretical development in physics in the past decade.
Since its inception, the Isaac Newton Institute (INI) has embraced emerging technologies and it remains one of the few international visitor research institutes to provide live streaming services.