CSES/ARU Christmas Lectures : Maths' Greatest Unsolved Puzzles

Image – Dave Hughes

We are delighted to invite you to join us again at ARU for our annual Christmas Lectures. Now in their fourth year, we offer these events, FREE OF CHARGE, to every secondary school in Essex. Last year we welcomed more than one thousand students from thirty eight schools as renowned experts in their fields shared their knowledge of their chosen areas. We hope that this year you will bring your students along to see mathematician Dr Katie Steckles as she challenges us to solve some puzzles and tells us about some that haven't been solved, yet.

While mathematicians are undoubtedly brilliant, and their work is used in all kinds of amazing scientific and technological discoveries, there are still questions they can't answer. Every mathematical question is a puzzle to be solved, and while there'll be plenty of puzzles for you to chew on, we'll also discuss some of the questions that still leave mathematicians stumped - from simple sounding number and shape problems to some truly mind-bending fundamental questions.

Katie Steckles is a mathematician based in Manchester, who gives talks and workshops and writes about mathematics. She finished her PhD in 2011, and since then has talked about maths in schools and universities, at science and music festivals, on BBC radio and TV, as part of theatre shows, in books and on the internet.

Katie works part-time as a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, teaching undergraduates on the maths and computer science courses. She has also lectured part-time at Sheffield Hallam University, teaching modules in the Institute of Education, and before that in the mathematics department. Katie also contributed to SHU's outreach programme, and chaired the SHU Recreational Mathematics Research Cluster in 2022.

To reserve places for your students please send an email to contact@cses.org.uk stating which session(s) you prefer(AM, PM, EITHER OR BOTH), how many students you wish to bring, and their year groups.

We are also able to offer tours of the ARU facilities to a limited number of students with each session! This will mean that it becomes a full day event with the lecture in the morning and the tour in the afternoon, or vice-versa, with a lunch break between*. If you wish to take part in the tour please also indicate this on your email.

* Students will need to bring a packed lunch or purchase food from the ARU canteen.