The Adams Society has continued to host talks covering a broad range of topics of mathematical interest, by speakers from both Cambridge and further afield. Last Easter, Mr. Paul Craven from Goldman Sachs Asset Management gave a fascinating presentation on Behavioural Finance. Michaelmas saw a line-up of Cambridge-based speakers, with titles including The Nottingham Group, When Hardy met Dirac (by our own Dr. Garling), and What Would Newton Do?, the latter involving a fascinating presentation in which Prof. David Tong derived Kepler’s famous laws of planetary motion using only high-school level geometry instead of calculus. In Lent we had a series of visiting professors, including Prof. Ieke Moerdijk from Radboud University Nijmegen, who spoke about slicing a ball in four-dimensional space, and Prof. Dror Bar-Natan from the University of Toronto, who presented a way of applying algebra to solve a Rubik’s cube. Perhaps the most popular talk was Quantum Teleportation and Nonlocality by Prof. Richard Josza, one of the co-inventors of Quantum Teleportation.

The Adams Society Garden Party in June 2012 was a great success, for the first time featuring a barbeque and a live band, alongside the traditional Pimm’s, strawberries and croquet. Unfortunately, the Trinity Mathematical Society, doubtless terrified by our collective sporting prowess, claimed themselves unavailable for the usual cricket match; we look forward to the return of this high-point of the mathematical and sporting calendars this year. The Desserts party in Michaelmas was a fantastic opportunity to take a break from example sheets and to relax in the presence of plentiful cheese, wine and maths-related humour. Finally, we were delighted to welcome Prof. Sir Andrew Wiles, who famously proved Fermat’s Last Theorem, as the guest speaker at our black tie Annual Dinner in Lent term.

Many thanks go to all the committee members for all their hard work, and to Prof. Johnstone and Dr. Garling for their help in collecting records of former Adams Society committees.

Tom Durrant, President 2012-13

You can view other Presidents’ reports here.