School of Physical Sciences

This free event is open only to members of the University of Cambridge (and affiliated institutes). Please be aware that we are unable to offer consultations outside clinic hours.

If you would like to participate, please sign up as we will not be able to offer a consultation otherwise. Please sign up through the following link: https://forms.gle/yCMudg1CrjUbFe2Q9. Sign-up is possible from May 8 midday (12pm) until May 8 midday or until we reach full capacity, whichever is earlier. If you successfully signed up, we will confirm your appointment by May 14 midday.

• Speaker: MR5 at the CMS
• Wednesday 14 May 2025, 16:30-18:00
• Venue: MR5.
• Series: Cambridge Statistics Clinic; organiser: tm681.

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Many real-life fluids are not Newtonian and have to be modelled with something more complex than a single scalar viscosity. In this talk we will look specifically at dilute polymer solutions. We’ll see some simple models that capture the essential features of their behaviour, and then investigate how the properties of these models affect the stability of channel flow.

The story spans my whole research career so far, from an early theoretical prediction which was later observed in experiments, to a more recent realisation that there is still quite a lot we don’t understand. If time permits I will also discuss the latest place the research has taken me, which is neither viscoelastic nor unstable.

• Speaker: Prof Helen Wilson, University College London
• Friday 02 May 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: MR2.
• Series: Fluid Mechanics (DAMTP); organiser: Professor Grae Worster.

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Abstract not available

• Speaker: Isabel Papanagnou
• Friday 16 May 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: Tea Room, Old House.
• Series: Bullard Laboratories Tea Time Talks; organiser: David Al-Attar.

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Abstract not available

• Speaker: Zachary Sudholz
• Friday 20 June 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: Tea Room, Old House.
• Series: Bullard Laboratories Tea Time Talks; organiser: David Al-Attar.

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Abstract not available

• Speaker: Sergei Lebedev ( University of Cambridge)
• Friday 23 May 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: Tea Room, Old House.
• Series: Bullard Laboratories Tea Time Talks; organiser: David Al-Attar.

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Abstract not available

• Speaker: Prof. Sarah Teichmann, FMedSci, FRS (Cambridge)
• Thursday 01 May 2025, 14:00-15:30
• Venue: Seminar Room 3, RDC.
• Series: Theory of Condensed Matter; organiser: Bo Peng.

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Abstract not available

• Speaker: John Rudge
• Friday 06 June 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: Tea Room, Old House.
• Series: Bullard Laboratories Tea Time Talks; organiser: David Al-Attar.

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The Gromov-Wasserstein (GW) distance, rooted in optimal transport (OT) theory, quantifies dissimilarity between metric measure spaces and provides a natural framework for aligning them. As such, GW distance enables applications including object matching, single-cell genomics, and matching language models. While computational aspects of the GW distance have been studied heuristically, most of the mathematical theories about GW duality, Brenier maps, geometry, etc., remained elusive, despite the rapid progress these aspects have seen under the classical OT paradigm in recent decades. This talk will cover recent progress on closing these gaps for the GW. We present (i) sharp statistical estimation rates through duality, (ii) a thorough investigation of the Jordan-Kinderlehrer-Otto (JKO) scheme for the gradient flow of inner product GW (IGW) distance, and (iii) a dynamical formulation of IGW , which generalizes the Benamou-Brenier formula for the Wasserstein distance. Central to (ii) and (iii) is a Riemannian structure on the space of probability distributions, based on which we also propose novel numerical schemes for measure evolution and deformation. [Joint work with Zhengxin Zhang (Cornell), Ziv Goldfeld (Cornell), Kristjan Greenewald (IBM Research), and Youssef Mroueh (IBM Research)]

RCLW01 - Uncertainty in multivariate, non-Euclidean, and functional spaces: theory and practice

• Speaker: Bharath Sriperumbudur (Pennsylvania State University)
• Thursday 08 May 2025, 11:45-12:45
• Venue: Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute.
• Series: Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series; organiser: nobody.

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Abstract not available

• Speaker: Zachary Sudholz
• Friday 20 June 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: Tea Room, Old House.
• Series: Bullard Laboratories Tea Time Talks; organiser: David Al-Attar.

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Abstract not available

• Speaker: James Jackson
• Friday 13 June 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: Tea Room, Old House.
• Series: Bullard Laboratories Tea Time Talks; organiser: David Al-Attar.

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Abstract not available

• Speaker: John Rudge
• Friday 06 June 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: Tea Room, Old House.
• Series: Bullard Laboratories Tea Time Talks; organiser: David Al-Attar.

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Abstract not available

• Speaker: Alex Copley
• Friday 02 May 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: Tea Room, Old House.
• Series: Bullard Laboratories Tea Time Talks; organiser: David Al-Attar.

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Around 1940, P. A. Smith showed that if finite p-group P acts on a finite dimensional complex X that is acyclic in mod p homology, then the space of fixed points, XP, would also be acyclic in mod p homology.   The more recent chromatic Smith theorem of Barthel et. al., says that if a finite abelian p-group A of rank r acts on a finite complex X that is acyclic in K(n+r) homology then XA will be acyclic in K(n) homology. (When stated this way, it has been implicitly assumed that XA is nonempty.)   With William Balderrama, the speaker has given another proof of this theorem, in the spirit of standard proofs of Smith’s original theorem. The hypothesis that XA is nonempty is not needed: indeed this is proved enroute. Much of our proof works for all finite dimensional A-spaces X, not just finite ones, including proving the existence of a fixed point. This opens the question of whether the chromatic Smith theorem might also hold under this weaker hypothesis. Examples show that there is an obvious problem when n=0, but a nonequivariant theorem of Bousfield hints that this might be the only problem.   In my talk, I will discuss our proof, and various open questions that it suggests.

EHT - Equivariant homotopy theory in context

• Speaker: Nicholas Kuhn (University of Virginia)
• Tuesday 27 May 2025, 14:00-15:00
• Venue: Seminar Room 2, Newton Institute.
• Series: Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series; organiser: nobody.

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I have been “officially” formalizing Fermat’s Last Theorem for 6 months now, and unofficially I’ve been doing so for around a year. In this talk I’ll give you an update on where we are, how it’s going, and what I’ve learnt so far. More precisely, I’ll talk about infrastructure (what we’ve settled on, the problems that we’ve had, and how we solved them). I’ll talk about what the goals of the project are, what we have achieved, and where we’re going. And I’ll talk about what were (to me) some unexpected consequences of the formalization procedure, namely some old mathematics which we’ve poked holes in, and some new mathematics which has come out of the project. Finally I want to stress that I will not be assuming that the audience knows anything at all about the details of the proof! The talk will be suitable for a general scientific audience.

=== Hybrid talk ===

Join Zoom Meeting https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/87143365195?pwd=SELTNkOcfVrIE1IppYCsbooOVqenzI.1

Meeting ID: 871 4336 5195

Passcode: 541180

• Speaker: Kevin Buzzard (Imperial College London)
• Thursday 01 May 2025, 17:00-18:00
• Venue: MR14 Centre for Mathematical Sciences.
• Series: Formalisation of mathematics with interactive theorem provers ; organiser: Anand Rao Tadipatri.

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The ultralow frequency variability of the Earth’s climate features an interplay of typically long periods of stasis accompanied by critical transitions between qualitatively different regimes associated with metastable states. Such transitions have often been accompanied by massive and rapid changes in the biosphere. Multiple transitions between the coexisting warm and snowball climates occurred more than 600 Mya and eventually led to conditions favourable to the development of multicellular life. The coexistence of such states is due to the instability associated with the positive ice-albedo feedback, Yet, this behaviour repeats itself across a wide range of timescales, spatial domains, and physical processes. Building on Hasselmann’s program, we propose here to interpret the time-evolution of the Earth system as a trajectory taking place in a dynamical landscape, whose multiscale features describe a hierarchy of metastable states and associated tipping points. We introduce the concept of climatic Melancholia states, saddle embedded in the boundary between the basins of attraction of the stable climates and explain under which conditions they act as gateways of noise-induced transitions. Using a hierarchy of numerical models, we discuss in detail the dichotomy between warm and snowball climate by bringing together the deterministic and stochastic viewpoint on the related global stability properties. We then discuss the paleoclimatically-relevant case where multiple competing climatic states are present and show the relevance of our angle for interpreting proxy data. Finally, if time allows, we will present some very recent results suggesting that our viewpoint might explain some intriguing aspects of the dynamical features of the tipping points of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

Key References V. Lucarini and T. Bodai, Transitions across Melancholia States in a Climate Model: Reconciling the Deterministic and Stochastic Points of View, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 158701 (2019) G. Margazoglou et al., Dynamical landscape and multistability of a climate model, Proc. R. Soc. A.477 210019 (2021) V. Lucarini, M.D. Chekroun, Theoretical tools for understanding the climate crisis from Hasselmann’s programme and beyond, Nature Reviews Physics 5 (12), 744-765 (2023) D. D. Rousseau et al., A punctuated equilibrium analysis of the climate evolution of cenozoic exhibits a hierarchy of abrupt transitions. Sci Rep 13, 11290 (2023) J. Lohmann et al., Multistability and Intermediate Tipping of the Atlantic Ocean Circulation, Sci. Advances 10 DOI : 10.1126/sciadv.adi4253 (2024)

• Speaker: Prof Valerio Lucarini, University of Leicester
• Friday 09 May 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: MR2.
• Series: Fluid Mechanics (DAMTP); organiser: Professor Grae Worster.

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MHMW02 - Modern History of Mathematics: Looking Ahead

• Speaker:
• Wednesday 30 April 2025, 14:00-18:00
• Venue: No Room Required.
• Series: Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series; organiser: nobody.

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In this talk I will present material from my current book project, Writing the Rules of Reason: The Social Life of Notation from Logic to Computing. It is a history of two fundamental transformations in the study of logic: First, logic was reconstructed from a humanistic study of reason to a mathematical science. Second, this new mathematical science was taken as a theoretical foundation for digital computing. I tell these intertwined stories by focusing on writing. How exactly does one write down an abstract logical statement? Before any theoretical construct could be embodied in a machine, it was first embodied on paper. Logicians always depended on inscriptive techniques to give physical form to their ideas, and different authors approached this problem in disparate ways. By centering notations and their communities of users, I show how the most abstract of sciences was rooted in the local milieus around an emerging transnational network of practitioners. Their work in logic was intertwined with local cultures and commitments. As notations proliferated, the growing diversity of symbolic techniques ultimately shaped not only the presentation but also the content of logic. My project builds on literature that has emphasized the importance of writing in the history of math, and calls for even great attention to the activities that record and perform theory on material surfaces. Focusing on writing grounds the history of math in histories of human practice.

MHMW02 - Modern History of Mathematics: Looking Ahead

• Speaker: David Dunning (Smithsonian Institution)
• Thursday 01 May 2025, 15:30-16:30
• Venue: Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute.
• Series: Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series; organiser: nobody.

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Given the absence of direct evidence for new resonances beyond the Standard Model at the LHC so far, a complementary strategy to search for new physics in an indirect way is provided by the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT). Global interpretations within the SMEFT framework, including their matching to UV-complete models, involve energy scales spanning several orders of magnitude. In this talk, I will demonstrate how to relate these measurements among them in terms of a common energy scale as enabled by the Renormalisation Group Equations. I will then quantify their impact in a global SMEFT fit to LEP and LHC data, presenting results in terms of SMEFT parameters as well as UV couplings. Finally, I will show a brief application to the Higgs self-coupling using projected data from the HL-LHC and the FCC -ee.

• Speaker: Jaco ter Hoeve (University of Edinburgh)
• Friday 02 May 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Venue: MR19 (Potter Room, Pavilion B), CMS.
• Series: HEP phenomenology joint Cavendish-DAMTP seminar; organiser: Nico Gubernari.

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BPRW03 - Big proof: formalizing mathematics at scale

• Speaker: Wenda Li (University of Edinburgh)
• Friday 13 June 2025, 10:15-11:15
• Venue: Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute.
• Series: Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series; organiser: nobody.

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BPRW03 - Big proof: formalizing mathematics at scale

• Speaker: Mario Carneiro (Chalmers University of Technology)
• Tuesday 10 June 2025, 11:45-12:45
• Venue: Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute.
• Series: Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series; organiser: nobody.

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