Oxford Math Magic

Oxford Maths department brings its magic to Dulwich In early December, Dulwich College International invited Professor Marcus du Sautoy to send three of his postgraduate mathematics students (known as 'Mathemagicians') to visit and work with our students here in China. Marcus is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science based at the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford in the UK. He has written several highly-acclaimed books about Maths and several documentaries. He presented the 178th Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 2006 titled the 'Number Mysteries'. He also runs a programme where he sends some of his post-graduates to schools around the UK to work with students spreading the word of mathematics. You can read about this here.

They conducted stimulating mathematical activities with many of our Senior School students and workshops with our teachers as well. There was also an opportunity for our older students to attend a short informal Q&A session with the Mathemagicians to find out about Oxford and Oxford University and their Mathematics Department. It was a most enjoyable and mathematically enriching couple of days for our students and rounds out what has been an eventful few months in the Dulwich College mathematics world. Over the November break, six DCB students from Years 10 and 12 completed the second half of a mathematics exchange with Lasswade High School, Edinburgh, following the Scottish students’ visit to DCB in October. During this week-long trip, students had the opportunity to sample ‘Advanced Higher’ Mathematics lessons, which included challenging content at university undergraduate level. Students also enjoyed visits to both Edinburgh and St. Andrews universities during their stay, which certainly opened their eyes to the opportunities of higher education. While late in November the results of this year's UK Senior Mathematics Challenge arrived after 39 of our Beijing IB students took part in the 90 minute examination challenge along with 100,000 top Mathematics students from around the world. Five Beijing students scored above average, earning themselves a Bronze certificate, 13 achieved a Silver certificate and 19 won the top award of Gold (reserved for only the top 6% of all scores). On top of this, 8 of our students qualified for the British Mathematics Olympiad Round 1 on 30th November, reserved for only the top 500 students. Each year, approximately 20 students (worldwide) achieve a perfect score and this year both Namseok (Nick) Lee in Year 12 and Tae Han (David) Yoon in Year 13 did just that. Well done to all those students who took part and who have represented our school so well. Article courtesy of Dulwich College Shanghai and Beijing; and Nolan Brook.