果冻影院

Dr Fry will deliver Secrets and Lies: The Hidden Power of Maths, which will be a series of three lectures broadcast from the Royal Institution鈥檚 theatre in London.

Through the lectures she will show how to decode life鈥檚 hidden numbers, helping listeners to understand how some of the most astonishing miracles can be understood with probability, how big data dictates many of the trends people follow and how powerful algorithms secretly influence even our most important life choices.

鈥淚鈥檇 argue that maths is the most important idea that humans have ever had. It鈥檚 the foundation of science. Its application has transformed our world. But because so much of it is invisible, we just don鈥檛 realise how powerful it is or the extent to which it influences our every decision,鈥� Dr Fry explained.

鈥淢uch of what maths does for us, is clearly for the benefit of society 鈥� it keeps skyscrapers standing and planes in the air, it helps us stay connected and hides behind the cures for when we鈥檙e ill. It鈥檚 also the most glorious playground, so we鈥檒l be spending a lot of time sharing some of its delights with our young audience.鈥�

Through asking big ethical questions, Dr Fry will also warn how our unwavering faith in numbers may lead to disaster, questioning whether there are problems which maths shouldn鈥檛 be allowed to solve.

She continued: 鈥淵ou have to be careful not to get carried away, because maths also has the potential to go horribly wrong. I believe we should all be thinking more deeply about the place of maths in our lives and I will be asking some challenging questions to help show who鈥檚 really in control.鈥澨�

In her first lecture, Dr Fry will discuss whether the biggest events in our lives such as finding the perfect partner rely on an element of luck or not. In her second, she will demonstrate how data-gobbling algorithms have taken over our lives and now control much of what we do without us realising.

Her third lecture will look at examples of human miscalculation and question whether we should always place our trust in numbers.

Shaun Fitzgerald, Director of the Royal Institution, said: 鈥淎t the Royal Institution we want everyone to discover and critically examine the way in which science shapes the world around us.听

鈥淭his year we鈥檙e leading a national conversation about the place of maths in our lives, because we all need to be sure it鈥檚 continuing to create a society we want to live in.鈥澨�

The 2019 Christmas Lectures will be filmed in the Royal Institution鈥檚 theatre on the 12, 14 and 17 December, and broadcast on BBC Four between Christmas and New Year.

Other 果冻影院 academics who have delivered the Christmas Lectures in recent years include Professor Sophie Scott (果冻影院 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience) in 2017 and Dr Kevin Fong (果冻影院 Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy) in 2015.

Links

• The Bartlett, 果冻影院 Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
• The Bartlett, 果冻影院 Faculty of the Built Environment

Image

• Dr Hannah Fry. Credit:听Paul Wilkinson Photography

Source

Media contact

Kate Corry

Tel: +44 (0)20 3108 6995

Email: k.corry [at] ucl.ac.uk