Sydney Mathematical Research Institute
Newsletter One 2025
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Message from the Executive Director
Dear friend of SMRI,
We are off to a flying start this year! This year’s AMSI Summer School was held at The University of Sydney, and SMRI was delighted to host their public lecture — a personal mathematical story ‘From Play to Sea’ by Jordan Pitt. You can catch up on Jordan discussing his career trajectory, from realising that maths was more intriguing than he had initially thought in school, to modelling the effect of waves on sea ice. With 3.14 around the corner, we are now in the midst of preparing another public event: an exciting weekend of maths at the Chau Chak Wing Museum! International Day of Mathematics
The official theme of the International Day of Mathematics (Pi Day) 2025 is “Mathematics, Art, and Creativity”. Our celebrations start with a public lecture by Henry Segerman reflecting on “Artistic Mathematics: Truth and Beauty” on Friday 14 March. Henry is a mathematician at Oklahoma State University, hosts a popular YouTube channel and is the author of the book “ Visualizing Mathematics with 3D Printing”.
On the weekend of Saturday 15 March to Sunday 16 March, we will explore creativity in mathematics and connections with art, music and architecture in collaboration with the Chau Chak Wing Museum. The full program includes performances by ARIA-Nominated ‘Ensemble Offspring’ and a collaborative artwork designed by Brisbane based artist Briony Barr, in collaboration with physicist Andrew Melatos. Our program includes talks, panels and maths craft activities for all ages. Research and Seminars
The core mission of SMRI is supporting fundamental research and collaboration in the mathematical sciences — through our visitor programs, themed semesters, and the weekly seminar series that are starting again this week. Subscribe to the weekly update or view the SMRI What's On calendar. If you are in Sydney, we would be delighted to see you at our weekly afternoon tea on Thursdays!
Themed semester in 2025
Charlotte Chan and Thomas Lam have arrived for their sabbatical from the University of Michigan. They will lead a focused semester on "Modern Perspectives in Representation Theory" with Geordie Williamson which begins in May — navigate to the website for more information!
Updates on our Advisory Board
We would like to thank Jan de Gier, who departed from the SMRI Advisory Board last year. Jan devoted time and invaluable insights to SMRI since its inception in 2018. Jan will be succeeded by David Wood, who agreed to join the board from 2025, and we very much look forward to David’s contributions to SMRI!
Please read on to find interesting reading, highlights, and announcements.
— Professor Stephan Tillmann
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Upcoming events for International Day of Mathematics 2025:
Mathematics, Art, and Creativity
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Artistic Mathematics: Truth and Beauty- A Public Lecture by Henry Segerman
Dr Segerman will talk about his work in mathematical visualization: making accurate, effective, and beautiful pictures, models, and experiences of mathematical concepts. He will discuss what it is that makes a visualization compelling, and show many examples in the medium of 3D printing, as well as some work in virtual reality and spherical video. Dr Segerman will also discuss his experiences in teaching a project-based class on 3D printing for mathematics students.
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Friday 14 March, 2025
Lecture at 5:30 pm followed by drinks and canapés from 6:30 pm
Susan Wakil Health Building, University of Sydney
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CCWM X SMRI present
Maths at the Museum
The official theme of the International Day of Mathematics in 2025 is “Mathematics, Art, and Creativity”.
In this special family weekend join us as the Sydney Mathematical Research Institute and the Chau Chak Wing Museum combine to explore creativity in mathematics and connections with art, music and architecture through talks, panels, children's activities and performances across the weekend in the Chau Chak Wing Museum.
While most activities and museum entry are free, bookings are essential for the Sound of Symmetry performance by ARIA-nominated Ensemble Offspring ($5). Register here.
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Saturday 15 March & Sunday 16 March
12 pm to 4 pm
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Modern Perspectives in Representation Theory: Special Semester 2025Charlotte Chan, Thomas Lam and Geordie Williamson are organising a special semester on “Modern Perspectives in Representation Theory”, which will run at the Sydney Mathematical Research Institute this semester. Two week-long workshops will run, from May 19-23 and from June 2-6. More information about schedules, speakers and workshops is available on the website.
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Representation Theory Down Under: Conference
This conference, organised by Charlotte Chan, Thomas Lam, Andrew Mathas, Daniel Tubbenhauer and Geordie Williamson,
is part of the special semester on Modern Perspectives in Representation Theory.
Registration is essential.
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June 2 – 6The University of Sydney
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Summer highlights from SMRI
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To celebrate the final week of AMSI Summer School, SMRI jointly hosted a public lecture with AMSI, given by USYD mathematician and Associate Dean of Indigenous Strategy and Services Jordan Pitt. Jordan traced his journey from early mathematical play in school, to modelling the effect of waves on sea ice (described by him as the best job in the world!).
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SMRI Director Geordie Williamson brought the conversation about artificial intelligence to Woodford Folk Festival
The Woodford folk festival is the largest of its kind in Australia, attracting more than 125,000 guests every year to the Sunshine Coast hinterland. SMRI Director Geordie Williamson was an invited speaker at Woodford 2024 − 2025, participating as panellist for AI Uncovered, alongside Angkana Whiley, Elissa Farrow, and Zoe Kean. Geordie also gave a talk on the topic: Can AI think? The talks were attended by more than 1000 people who crowded into Luna and Arbour (standing room only!).
Geordie's talk canvassed the history of AI, from Turing's early work to the modern 'godfathers of AI' and their disagreements over the fundamental capabilities of this technology. Following the session, Geordie reported that he was still answering questions from attendees for around 90 minutes, and was blown away by the goodwill and genuine interest of attendees. These events demonstrated the public appetite for meaningful discussions about artificial intelligence and its impacts on the world.
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Computing the Hausdorff dimension of the Apollonian gasket with Caroline Wormell
The Apollonian gasket is a well-known fractal identified more than 2000 years ago by Apollonius of Perga. The distribution of circle radii within the construct is governed by the Hausdorff dimension (roughly 1.3), however computing the exact dimension to a high degree of accuracy has eluded mathematicians until recently. Caroline Wormell (University of Sydney) and her collaborator Polina Vytnova (University of Surrey) published their method for calculating the Hausdorff dimension to 128 decimal places in Inventiones Mathematicae in January 2025. To celebrate its publication, we spoke to Caroline and asked her to break down the key concepts behind this paper.
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Jonathan Gruber uses symmetry as a tool to understand mathematical objects
Pure mathematician Jonathan Gruber visited SMRI from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. His research interests include representation theory, algebraic groups, tensor categories, Hecke algebras, and homological algebra. In this video, Jonathan discusses research in pure mathematics generally, as well as his collaborative work with Daniel Tubbenhauer accomplished during his visit to SMRI.
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International Visitor Program: Next round opens June 2025
Applications for the IVP (Feb 2025 round) are now closed, with outcomes to be announced in May. The next round of the IVP will open in June 2025, for visits taking place between July 2026 – June 2027. Applications for the Domestic and Ukrainian Visitor Programs are on a rolling basis.
Keep an eye on the IVP webpage or follow us on social media to keep up to date with the latest news about our visitor programs.
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