On Friday the 6th October, during period 3, year 12 and 13 mathematicians & physicists were treated to a visit from Dr Tom Crawford. Dr Crawford is part of the teaching and learning team at St Edmund's Hall college at Oxford university but also delivers outreach work with like minded youngsters. Year 12 and 13 underwent a lecture that was based around the millennium prize maths problems. The millennium maths problems consist of 7 problems that were deemed to be the most important problems in mathematics to be solved. However, their effect on other areas such as physics and the wider world cannot be understated. These problems are so important that the Clay Mathematics institute awards $1000 000 to the individual who solves just one of the 7 problems!
Dr Crawford gave an insight into some of the problems such as the Rhieman hypothesis, the Yang Mills gap and Navier Stokes equations. The latter was the subject of Dr Crawford's research for his PHd so the students were in good hands.
Year 12 & 13 were then given some priceless information regarding the interview process for Oxford university, hopefully the students will find this invaluable for their future endeavours in their academic journeys. The students listened intently and the information shared was embraced by the students, thus leading to the realisation that they can achieve this level of academia.
The students involved were terrific throughout and Dr Crawford commented on their zeal to learn. We expected nothing less from our students, hopefully it wasn’t just about the $1 000 000 prize money…….
Mr Hare
Assistant head of Maths at Thomas Gainsborough school.