MORE than 1,000 visitors flocked to a free maths festival in Oxford last weekend.
Across two days of talks, workshops, hands-on activities and walking tours, the family-friendly event aimed to ‘bring maths to life’.
Organised by Oxford University, the festival showcased ‘some of the curiosities and unexpected applications maths holds’.
From mathematical magic tricks, to exploring cryptography’s use in ancient Egypt and international espionage and how mathematics can help take the perfect penalty kick, the event engaged children around the city in the curiosities of maths.
Attendees were told what links pizza, pi, and playing the guitar, and calculated the risk of cycling without a helmet.
Dr Vicky Neale, from Oxford’s Mathematical Institute, said: “The Oxford Maths Festival is all about the playfulness and creativity of maths. We showcased the many ways maths is applied to understanding the wider world, and gave people of all ages the chance to have a hands-on experience of the beauty of maths.”
Festival highlights included a series of interactive experiments with Professor Marcus du Sautoy exploring the power of crowd averages in answering certain numerical questions.
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