Oxford today

RAFAEL VIÑOLY ARCHITECTS 32
No More Isolation
The £70m
Mathematical
Institute, part
of a £200m
redevelopment
ways of looking at prime numbers. That in turn
has provided our best clue yet that it is the
mathematics that underpins quantum physics
which might be the right tool to tackle the
Riemann Hypothesis.
Despite the exciting new bridges being built,
we still have a long way to go in breaking down
the silo mentality traditionally found in
universities. When I started as the Professor for
the Public Understanding of Science, one of the
missions I set myself was to get people from
different scientific disciplines in the university
talking to each other, finding out each other’s
research problems, and seeing if they might be
sitting on tools in their own disciplines that might
help others. I was amazed, talking to scientists,
at how many had never set foot in each other’s
buildings. An astronomer who visited me
declared, “This is the first time I’ve been in the
Mathematical Institute.” We’re physically so close
that I can see his office from my office window.
Yet academically, it seems like we were on
opposite sides of the universe.
To try to counter this, I piloted a series of
podcasts that successfully brought experts
together to share their stories in a Radio 4, Start
the Week-type package. It is a project that I believe
has the potential to provide a powerful vehicle for
facilitating inter-disciplinary dialogue.
Of course this compartmentalisation of subjects
has its origins in the traditional model of education
in schools. Pupils go from a history lesson to a
maths lesson to a music lesson to a physics lesson
and are barely aware that the subjects they have just
been studying have any connection with each other.
One of the reasons I made the BBC documentary
The Story of Maths was to make the important
connection between mathematics and history.
Most people’s impression of mathematics is that
it is a subject that was handed down in some great
text book from the sky, that it’s always existed and
is a finished subject. I think Fermat’s Last Theorem,
for most, was exactly that – the last theorem. Maths
has now been finished.
Profitable connections needn’t just be between
traditional academic subjects. Complicite’s awardwinning
play A Disappearing Number brought the
worlds of theatre and mathematics together in a
piece that surprised many who came to see it.
I spent many sessions with the company exploring
the mathematics at the heart of the play, the
mathematics that grew out of the relationship
between English mathematician GH Hardy and
Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. The