[Guest post by Stephanie Pradier, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute]
If we really do want to become the ‘Clever Country’, we will need far more mathematicians to sustain a surge of innovation across Australia. In the inaugural International Year of Maths of Planet Earth, here at the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, we want to dazzle all Australians by demonstrating the immense impact that the mathematical sciences has on our daily lives.
Like a Gaussian curve, our yearly calendar peaks in the middle with "MPE Australia - The Conference" - a week long event that is designed as a platform to inspire interdisciplinary discussions and collaborations. Our conference will tackle some of humanity’s greatest challenges and will bring together passionate people from the scientific and non-scientific community to cultivate their ideas over a series of lectures, workshops and ‘do tank’ roundtables.
To ignite the conversations and spark new ideas ahead of next week’s event, we have started hosting Google Hangouts with a number of our featured speakers. Last week, we spoke with Kate Evans from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory about high resolution earth systems models and how the saying when a butterfly flaps its wings in Asia… turns out to be far more real than we may have imagined.
You can tune in this Friday as we talk with John Cook, founder of SkepticalScience.com, about the “Psychology of misinformation” and “How to convert a climate change skeptic”.
It is not enough to simply show our young leaders the importance of mathematics, kids need to get their hands dirty with maths. There are a bunch of competitions puzzles and classroom activities available to do just this. You can also find out more about the intimate integration of maths within every crevice of human existence at our ongoing blog named MPE blog: A coffee with….
So, jump online and get cracking - we need more mathematicians and statisticians... and, we need them now!
Posted by Stephanie Pradier, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute
