The Society's annual Popular Lecture presents exciting topics in mathematics and its applications to a wide audience. The aim of the lecture is to promote mathematics with a talk that is accessible and inspiring to the general public. The event was created to appeal to students (typically A-level and above) and members of the public who have an interest in serious mathematics but do not necessarily have high-level training.
The 2024 Popular Lecture will be given by Sarah Hart on Thursday 9 May 2024 at Bramall Music Building, University of Birmingham. Click here for further details.
Previous Popular Lectures
Since 1982, the London Mathematical Society has hosted its annual free Popular Lectures to inspire interest in mathematics. A full list of speakers and the lecture titles is below.
Videos of previous LMS Popular Lectures are available on the LMS YouTube channel.
2023
No lecture
2022
Lakes, rivers… and waterfalls? The surprising things maths can help us to understand about Antarctica - Samantha Buzzard
2021
The maths of crowd behaviour - Aoife Hunt
Patterns in the prime - James Maynard
2020
No lecture
2019
My life in Maths - Peter Higgins
Shaping the Brain: The Mathematics of Folding and Connecting - Alan Goriely
2018
Maths's Greatest Unsolved Puzzles - Katie Steckles
Risky Business - Jennifer Rogers
2017
Adventures in the 7th Dimension - Jason Lotay
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Physics in Mathematics - David Tong
2016
The Shape of Data in Biology - Heather Harrington
One, Two, Red, Blue - Julia Wolf
2015 - To mark the 150th anniversary of the LMS, additional Popular Lectures were held
The Mathematics of Randomness - Martin Hairer, FRS
How Many....? (Estimating Population Sizes) - Ruth King
A good new millennium for prime numbers - Ben Green, FRS
Patterns in human behaviour - Hannah Fry
Party Hard! The Maths of Connections - Colva Roney-Dougal
The Mathematics of Processing Digital Images - Joan Lasenby
2014
What's in a number - Kevin Buzzard
Epidemics and Viruses: the mathematics of disease - Julia Gog
2013
Mathematics in the Courtroom – Ray Hill
Addictive Number Theory – Vicky Neale
2012
Can Anything be Salvaged from the Wreckage of Hilbert’s Dream? – Tim Gowers
On Attempting to Model the Mathematical Mind – Roger Penrose
2011
Symmetry, Chance & Determinism - Colva Roney-Dougal
How Climate Models Work and Could They Be Better? - Hilary Weller
2010
Modelling the Circle of Life: How Maths Untangles Knotty DNA Questions - Dorothy Buck
Clutching at Random Straws - Matt Parker
2009
Hollywood's Hippest Mathematics: random matrices and Riemann zeros - Nina Snaith
The Scale of Things - Mark Miodownik
2008
Toy models - Tadashi Tokieda
Know your enemy - viruses under the mathematical microscope - Reidun Twarock
2007
Chaos and Crochet - Hinke Osinga
Knots - Stephen Huggett
2006
From Magic Squares to Sudoku - Emma McCoy
How likely is that? - John Haigh
2005
The Mathematics of Shrek - Joan Lasenby
What Computers Cannot Do - Dr Alan Slomson
2004
Big Money Mathematics - Ken Binmore
A Spoonful of Maths Helps the Medicine Go Down - Helen Byrne
2003
Mathematics, Magic and the Electric Guitar - David Acheson
The Music of the Primes - Marcus du Sautoy
2002
Our Dynamic Sun - Helen Mason
Geometry Ancient & Modern – John Silvester
2001
Codes - Peter Cameron
Simulating the world - Chris Budd
2000
Simplicity and Complexity - John Barrow
Fractals - the New Geometry - Kenneth Falconer
1999
Floating, Spinning, Tumbling - Frank Berkshire
Tangent Circles – Patterns and Packings - Caroline Series
1998
Giraffe Blood Flow and Pattern Forming Bacteria - Tim Pedley
Marrying, Voting, Choosing - Tom Körner
1997
Staying Ahead of the Opposition – Mike Atkinson
How to Study Random Shapes – John Kent
1996
New Wine in Old Bottles – Peter Hilton
Bubbles and Dinosaurs – Michael Sewell
1995
Measuring the Marigold – Peter Saunders
Wild Geometry – Nigel Ray
1994
Fermat’s Last Theorem – Richard Pinch
Juggling – Colin Wright
1993
How to see Objects in Four Dimensions – S. A. Robertson
Optimisation of Running and Jumping – Robert McNeill Alexander
1992
A Breakthrough in Algebra – Peter Neumann
Heads I Win, Tails You Lose – Leslie Mustoe
1991
Four Encounters with Sierpinski’s Gasket – Ian Stewart
Wallpaper Patterns in Different Geometries – Alan Beardon
1990
Designing Experiments with Allowance for Interfering Neighbours – Rosemary Bailey
Geometry and Computers – Peter Giblin
1989
Asymptotic Approximations Simplified – Frank Leppington
Stamping Through Mathematics – Robin J. Wilson
1988
How Should a Mathematician Think About Shape – David G. Kendall
Chaology – Michael Berry
1987
Games that Solve Problems – Wilfrid Hodges
Codes and Ciphers – Fred Piper
1986
The Rise and Fall of Matrices – Walter Lederman
Games Animals Play – John Maynard Smith
1985
Discovering Mathematics with the Computer – Robert Churchhouse
Mathematics and the Law – Dennis Lindley
1984
The Fascination of Knots – Ronald Brown
Cosmic Geometry – Roger Penrose
1983
Hopping Mad: the Mathematics of Probability – D Williams
The Discovery of Perspective in the Renaissance – Christopher Zeeman
1982
Infinity: How Big is it? Who Invented it, Can you do Maths With Infinite Numbers? – Keith Devlin
Mathematics of Weather Forecasting – James Lighthill
Popular Lectures Mailing List
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