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Mark Ronan's website

News and Events

 

2011

November, Mark's article The mathematician's tale, appears in The New Millennium Tales by Kevin Lavery and Reg Starkey.

1st November, Mark's essay Removing the neutrino anomaly, on the apparent speed of neutrinos being faster than light, is published in Standpoint Magazine, November 2011, p. 68.

6th October, Professor Ronan's course on Lie Groups and Lie Algebras starts today at University College London.

1st September, Mark's essay Euro soap opera, on the new Bayreuth production of Tannhaeuser and the Euro Crisis, is published in Standpoint Magazine, September 2011, p. 13.

27th July, Mark's review of Tannhaeuser at Bayreuth appears in the Daily Telegraph.

1st July, Mark's essay The genius of geometry, on the mystery of Euclid's life, is published in Standpoint Magazine, July/August 2011, p. 83.

15th April, Mark's essay Lighting Design for Ballet, appears in Focus, The Journal of the Association of Lighting Designers, April/May 2011, p. 28–32

10th March, 6 p.m., Mark's talk The Importance of Proving Things takes place at Gresham College. He discusses Euclid's work at the great library of Alexandria, explains the parallel lines postulate, and the development of non-Euclidean geometry two thousand years later.

18th February, Mark's review of Ian Glynn's book Elegance in Science appears in the Times Literary Supplement (p.27).

10th January – 21st March, Mark gives a course on Lie Groups and Lie Algebras at University College London.

1st January, Mark is appointed to the Olivier Awards Panel for Opera for the year 2011.

1st January, Mark's essay University Challenged, on the stifling bureaucracy in universities, is published in Standpoint Magazine, January/February 2011, p. 12.

2010

24th December, Mark's review of Die Walk¸re at La Scala appears in the Daily Telegraph.

22nd October, Mark will speak on Symmetry and the Monster at the Banking Technology Summit (BTS) 2010 to be held from 21st to 24th October in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan.

18th October, Mark will speak on The Origins of Language and Writing in the Monday Lecture Series at the University of the Third Age, 10:20 at Hampstead Town Hall, Haverstock Hill, London.

1st September, Mark's essay On Her Majesty's Secret Service, about the Bletchley Park code-breakers and GCHQ, is published in Standpoint Magazine, September 2010, p. 64.

27th – 30th July, Mark will be in Sydney. He will give a talk at the HNA convention on 29th July. He will also talk on Symmetry and the Monster at the University of Sydney in the Joint Colloquium series.

1st May, Mark's essay Never too Old, on the value of learning ancient Greek, is published in Standpoint Magazine, May 2010, p. 13.

1st April, Mark's essay Maths Class, on the sensible way to teach arithmetic and elementary algebra, is published in Standpoint Magazine, April 2010, p. 13.

22nd March, Talk on The Calendar, WIZO, London N20.

1st January, Mark's essay Experts and Axioms, on how experts can be wrong, even in mathematics, is published in Standpoint Magazine, January/February 2010, p. 13.

2009

14th December, Talk on The Calendar, Hammerson House, London N2.

1st December, Mark's essay Unsound Science, on the government's recent misguided proposal to evaluate the social and economic impact of scientific research, is published by Standpoint Magazine, December 2009, p. 10/11.

10th November, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, at Dulwich College, London SE21.

30th October, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, at Imperial College, in the Clore Lecture Theatre at 12:30.

15th October, Mark's new revised edition of Lectures on Buildings is published by the University of Chicago Press.

14th October, Talk on Origins of Language and Writing, to the League of Jewish Women, London N14.

12th October, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, at Tower Hamlets College, London E14.

1st October, Mark's essay Maths Moves in Mysterious Ways, on the development of mathematics from Greeks to Arabs to Europe and America, is published by Standpoint Magazine, October 2009, p. 89.

29th September, Talk on Symmetry, at the Highgate Literary and Scientific Institute.

17th August, Talk on Origins of Language and Writing, Hammerson House, London N2.

12th June, Mark's review of Frank Close's book, Antimatter, is published by the Times Literary Supplement (12 June, p. 13).

1st June, Mark's essay Facing the Music on Ronald Harwood's plays Collaboration and Taking Sides, dealing with music and the Nazis, is published by Standpoint magazine.

22nd May, Mark's review of Ian Stewart's book, Taming the Infinite — The Story of Mathematics, is published by the Times Literary Supplement (22 May, p. 28).

1st May, Mark's review of Ian Stewart's book, Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, is published by the Times Literary Supplement (1 May, p. 28).

1st April, Mark's essay Taking research for granted, on the haphazard support for research in mathematics and science in Britain, is published by Standpoint magazine.

26th January, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, at the Garrick Club.

20th January, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, at St. Paul's Girls School.

16th January, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, at Cambridge University, in Meeting Room 5 of the Centre for Math. Science, Wilberforce Road.

2008

4th December, Talk on Gilgamesh and the Cuneiform Writing System, at Westminster School.

1st December, Mark's review of John Barrow's recent book, 1000 things you didn't know you didn't know, is published by Standpoint.

1st November, Mark's essay Ditch the new maths for good old Euclid, on bringing back Euclidean geometry to the school curriculum, is published by Standpoint.

10th October, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, at Westminster School.

29th September, Mark's two articles on Lie Theory and Buildings are published in the Princeton Companion to Mathematics.

4th May: Excerpts from Mark's recent programmes were chosen as one of the items for Pick of the Week on BBC Radio 4 at 18:15.

28th, 29th, 30th April and 1st May: four 15-minute programmes by Mark Ronan on BBC Radio 3. The programmes start with the life and work of Galois who died in a duel in 1832, and go on to describe subsequent developments leading to the Monster in the late 20th century; they form The Essay for the week, and can be heard on the 'Listen Again' feature at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/theessay/pip/915af/

30th April, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, at Eton College.

19th March, The Japanese translation of Symmetry and the Monster is published by Iwanami Shoten in Japan.

20th February, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, at 1 p.m. in Gresham College.

February, Mark's reviews of four recent mathematics books (authors: Ian Stewart, Mario Livio, John Derbyshire, Marcus du Sautoy) appear in the Times Literary Supplement (15 February) and Nature (7 February).

January, The University of Chicago Press confirm that they will publish a reprint of Lectures on Buildings, with new material by the author.

2007

December, Korean translation rights for Symmetry and the Monster are purchased by the Sallim Publishing Company in Korea.

8th November, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, at 3 p.m. in Ryerson 352 at The University of Chicago.

5th November, The Italian translation of Symmetry and the Monster, with the title Il mostro e la simmetria is published by Cortina of Milan.

30th October, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, in the UCL Lunch Hour Lecture Series, 1:15 p.m. in the Darwin Lecture Theatre, Gower Street, London WC1. An internet relay of the talk is available.

29th October, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, The Warwick Mathematics Society, at 5:30 p.m. in Room MS.02 of the Mathematics Department at the University of Warwick.

12th – 17th August, Mark gave four talks in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore as a guest of SilverLake Axis, a large-scale software company based in Kuala Lumpur and active throughout Southeast Asia.

17th May, Talk on Building Twins, London Algebra Seminar, Imperial College London.

16th May, Talk on The Local to Global Structure of Buildings, Pure Mathematics Seminar, University of Birmingham.

14th May, Talk on The Local to Global Structure of Buildings, Pure Mathematics Seminar, Queen Mary College, London University.

17th January, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, Mathematics Department, University College London

2006

3rd December: interview with Mark Lynch on his Inquiry program, broadcast on WICN Public Radio in New England.

November: Italian translation rights for Symmetry and the Monster are purchased by the publishers Cortina of Milan.

October: Japanese translation rights for Symmetry and the Monster are purchased by the publishers Iwanami Shoten in Japan.

29th September, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, Mathematics Department, University of Illinois at Chicago

24th May, Symmetry and the Monster; followed by The Monster and String Theory, by Katrin Wendland, at The Lighthill Institute of Mathematics, University College London. pdf

16th May, Symmetry and the Monster, talk and book launch, Savile Club, London

9th May, Moonshine for groups, and sunshine for geometry: the resolution of an old conjecture, University of Oxford Algebra Seminar

9th May, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, University of Oxford, Invariants Society

8th May, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, Mathematics Dept., Queen Mary College, University of London

5th May, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, Mathematics Dept., University of Nottingham

4th May, Talk on Symmetry and the Monster, Mathematics Dept., University of Birmingham