School Talks

The School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds offers a number of talks to Schools and Colleges on maths topics, life at Leeds University, applying to university, and exam technique.

If you would like to see one of mine at your school, then contact me via k.houston @ leeds.ac.uk or 0113 343 5136.

Talk 1: Mathematics and Card Cheating

A talk combining mathematics and card cheating that includes

perfect shuffles
(not) cheating at cards
the game of Faro
some mind reading
modular arithmetic

The talk is suitable for Years 11 to 13.

Resources for the talk

A short video (10 mins) by me on perfect shuffles:

Calendar recall From the Be A Genius site.
Game of Faro A site on the old game of Faro.

Talk 2: A Million Dollars Declined: The Poincaré Conjecture

The story of how a hundred year-old problem was solved. Included are:

Poincaré's conjecture explained.
Steve Smale on the beaches of Rio.
How not to solve the problem and the attack dogs of Berkley.
How to solve the problem.
Perelman declines the million dollar prize.
Perelman declines the Fields Medal.

Talk 3: The World Is Not Flat

Some interesting topics showing applications of geometry to the real world. Can include:

Pythagoras
How a librarian from ancient Egypt measured the size of the Earth
How to draw circles, parabolas, ellipses and hyperbolas
How GPS works
The longitude problem.
Why does Greenland look bigger than South America on a wall map?

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