The world’s best mathematics lecturer

etienne ghysNo, this is not my claim, but that of other more informed persons. I found it in Cedric Villani’s wonderful book (p. 16, if you’re interested). To whom was he referring? His colleague at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyons, Étienne Ghys, who counts among his fans the (probably) best mathematician in the world, Terence Tao (he’s up there, with a Fields Medal, and he’s Australian – good enough for me). Continue reading

Teaching with technology: the grim reality

The US has the Ivy League universities (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.), and in the UK it’s the Russell Group (Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, etc.). In Australia we have the yawningly-titled Group of Eight, deemed as the top research universities.

So it was that the medical faculty of one of these esteemed institutions invited my daughter to give a lecture on aspects of her medical specialty, oncology. Continue reading