Women in Maths

In August 2014 Maryam Mirzakhani, a professor at Stanford University, became the first woman to win the Fields Medal for achievements in mathematics, a medal comparable in prestige to a Nobel Prize, first awarded in 1936. Although around 40% of the UK undergraduates in mathematics are women, there is a well-documented leaking pipeline when it comes to women choosing to do a PhD and then choosing an academic career path. The proportion of women mathematicians declines rapidly the higher one looks on the academic ladder.

Unfortunately, this often makes women who do choose this career path invisible, to students who are about to choose their A-levels, even to students who are already pursuing a maths degree. Therefore the women at the School of Mathematical Sciences at University of Nottingham have made some videos to:become more visible and thus hopefully inspire others; fight stereotypes; talk about what it is like to be a mathematician in academia today and why they chose academia; communicate the passion they feel for what they do and what they love about it; describe the creativity needed for research. And yes - it can be combined with having a family!

[Susan-vefy]

I think this is fabulous!!  I applaud all efforts to increase the number of women in math.  It is great to hear women talk of their love of mathematics.

[SuperGreatSphinx]

Mathematics (from Greek μάθημα máthēma, "knowledge, study, learning") is the study of such topics as quantity, structure, space, and change.

There are many views among mathematicians and philosophers as to the exact scope and definition of mathematics.

Mathematicians seek out patterns and use them to formulate new conjectures.

Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proof.

When mathematical structures are good models of real phenomena, then mathematical reasoning can provide insight or predictions about nature.

Through the use of abstraction and logic, mathematics developed from counting, calculation, measurement, and the systematic study of the shapes and motions of physical objects.

Practical mathematics has been a human activity from as far back as written records exist.

The research required to solve mathematical problems can take years or even centuries of sustained inquiry.

Rigorous arguments first appeared in Greek mathematics, most notably in Euclid's Elements.

Since the pioneering work of Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932), David Hilbert (1862–1943), and others on axiomatic systems in the late 19th century, it has become customary to view mathematical research as establishing truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions.

Mathematics developed at a relatively slow pace until the Renaissance, when mathematical innovations interacting with new scientific discoveries led to a rapid increase in the rate of mathematical discovery that has continued to the present day.

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) said, "The universe cannot be read until we have learned the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth."

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) referred to mathematics as "the Queen of the Sciences".

Benjamin Peirce (1809–1880) called mathematics "the science that draws necessary conclusions".

David Hilbert said of mathematics: "We are not speaking here of arbitrariness in any sense. Mathematics is not like a game whose tasks are determined by arbitrarily stipulated rules. Rather, it is a conceptual system possessing internal necessity that can only be so and by no means otherwise."

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) stated that "as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

Mathematics is essential in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, finance and the social sciences.

Applied mathematics has led to entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics and game theory.

Mathematicians also engage in pure mathematics, or mathematics for its own sake, without having any application in mind.

There is no clear line separating pure and applied mathematics, and practical applications for what began as pure mathematics are often discovered.