Mathematics Midwinter Morning 2016

Posted on August 11, 2016

The Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics held its yearly Mathematics Midwinter Morning event on Friday 5 August 2015. The speaker for the day was Dave Pepler and the title of his talk; 'Nearly a triangle: chaos and nature, a personal view'. 

Dave shared snippets of his life’s journey, starting with less pleasant childhood memories from his Math class, to life changing interactions with wild gorillas. In taking the audience through this journey he demonstrated how challenging it is to predict life. Even with the best mathematical models at hand, nature and biological systems tend to be ‘predictable’ in that it somehow always delivers the unexpected. History shows that when we add human nature to these systems, we struggle to anticipate all possible scenarios.

“Sacrifice is not about giving something up, it’s about making it sacred”. Thanks to Dave and the marketing committee for a most enjoyable morning.

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