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Home | Membership Services | 1 February 2012 - Professor John Whiteman explains the role of 'Mathematics in the Modern World'


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Today at Rotary lunch we had the pleasure of a talk by a distinguished professor, John Whiteman, from Brunel University who is also a director of the Brunel Institute of Computational Mathematics and School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics.  He was also a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.

His talk was entitled “Modelling in the 21st Century” which has the purpose of promoting mathematics.  He also sits on the Parliamentary & Scientific Committee to examine how mathematics can be applied to solve global issues.

His talk outlined examples of how mathematics can be applied to solve waste management, and climate change issues, aero engine design, computers and communications. He also explained the significance of mathematics in predict the stress and ‘bend’ properties in the design of new polymers for industrial use in packaging.

Prof Whiteman has travelled the world looking at a whole range of applications and has the ability to make a complex subject both interesting and simple to understand.  This was demonstrated when explaining how it can be used in medical diagnosis of heart disease to predict precisely where a blockage due to atheroma is located in the arterial systems.

He finished by saying that whereas in law a person must be considered innocent until proved guilty, in mathematics and science the solution is considered wrong until it can be proved to be right.

He was roundly thanked for his talk and many questions followed.