Extension: MathSoMac: the social machine of mathematics
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Informatics
Abstract
This is an extension of the Fellowship: 'MathSoMac: the social machine of mathematics', which is an Established Career Fellowship, 2014-2018, EPSRC EP/K040251/2
Mathematics is recognized as a profound intellectual achievement, with impact on many aspects of wealth creation and quality of life, and as unique cultural capital, drawing crowds to exhibitions and public lectures. For centuries, the highest level of mathematics has been seen as an isolated creative activity, to produce a proof of a difficult theorem for review and acceptance by research peers. However, at a remarkable inflexion point, new technology is radically extending the power and limits of individuals.
Websites such as the polymath or mathoverflow sites allow researchers to collaborate with each other, and "show their working", so that others outside their specialist field can engage with their research and get early insight into things that might be useful. Now routinely used for verification of hardware and software designs, and in cyber-security, computer proof goes beyond symbolic computation, or numerical simulation, to generate mathematical arguments too complex for humans to grasp, and to check these chains of inference from first principles.
These phenomena have typically been viewed as distinct, linked only by their relationship to mathematics. Yet they have many common features, not least, as we showed in the original project, their dependence, ultimately, on human and social issues of mathematical judgement and creativity.
In this proposal, to extend our current research, we view these phenomena as a united whole, in which people and computer systems combine into a single problem-solving entity, where individuals interact with each other, and with computers which draw on a single "engine" of computer proof. We call this model of the production and application of mathematics the "social machine of mathematics" based on the new paradigm of "Social machines", identified by Berners-Lee about 20 years ago.
We focus on two research questions:
=== "Beyond Inference": how can we give human mathematicians the benefits of computer proof, while shielding them from its complexity?
=== " Towards impact: how can we evaluate the impact and cultural capital of foundational research?
Mathematics is recognized as a profound intellectual achievement, with impact on many aspects of wealth creation and quality of life, and as unique cultural capital, drawing crowds to exhibitions and public lectures. For centuries, the highest level of mathematics has been seen as an isolated creative activity, to produce a proof of a difficult theorem for review and acceptance by research peers. However, at a remarkable inflexion point, new technology is radically extending the power and limits of individuals.
Websites such as the polymath or mathoverflow sites allow researchers to collaborate with each other, and "show their working", so that others outside their specialist field can engage with their research and get early insight into things that might be useful. Now routinely used for verification of hardware and software designs, and in cyber-security, computer proof goes beyond symbolic computation, or numerical simulation, to generate mathematical arguments too complex for humans to grasp, and to check these chains of inference from first principles.
These phenomena have typically been viewed as distinct, linked only by their relationship to mathematics. Yet they have many common features, not least, as we showed in the original project, their dependence, ultimately, on human and social issues of mathematical judgement and creativity.
In this proposal, to extend our current research, we view these phenomena as a united whole, in which people and computer systems combine into a single problem-solving entity, where individuals interact with each other, and with computers which draw on a single "engine" of computer proof. We call this model of the production and application of mathematics the "social machine of mathematics" based on the new paradigm of "Social machines", identified by Berners-Lee about 20 years ago.
We focus on two research questions:
=== "Beyond Inference": how can we give human mathematicians the benefits of computer proof, while shielding them from its complexity?
=== " Towards impact: how can we evaluate the impact and cultural capital of foundational research?
Planned Impact
This is an extension of the Fellowship: 'MathSoMac: the social machine of mathematics'. This is an Established Career Fellowship, 2014-2018, EPSRC EP/K040251/2
By "Mathematics" we mean "Foundational research of a mathematical nature" - encompassing logic, theory of computing, statistics, and pure and applied mathematics, irrespective of administrative boundaries. Academic impact is described the previous section; non-academic impact is considerably overlapping.
"Beyond inference"
=== developers of computer verification and proof tools, as our work will contribute new techniques and understanding of the tools themselves, through extending their application, through the use of f-abstracts to bridge the gap between formal and informal proof.
=== mathematicians and users of mathematics will have access to tools that allow them to create and access new mathematics more quickly: specifically, our work on f-abstracts will contribute to developing new ways in which such users can access the benefits of computer proof, while being shielded from its complexity
=== mathematics educators, and those building tools for them will have new material and techniques for teaching proof, in particular we hope to deploy our techniques through our partnership with Maplesoft, with products and services used by more than 8000 educational institutions and other organisations, in over 90 countries.
Of "Towards impact"
=== researchers, and users, managers, and funders of research, who need to understand drivers for success, failure and impact of foundational research; track quantitative and qualitative whole-life indicators of promise and progress; develop resilient plans, responsive to such indicators as research proceeds; interpret impact to diverse audiences, to shape research strategy and practice; and, crucially, do this without impeding research quality and progress or increasing the burdens on researchers.
=== All those who communicate the impact of foundational research of a mathematical nature, either within or beyond their own community, or in professional settings such as museums, with a new framing as "Cultural capital" enabling broader thinking and assessment.
By "Mathematics" we mean "Foundational research of a mathematical nature" - encompassing logic, theory of computing, statistics, and pure and applied mathematics, irrespective of administrative boundaries. Academic impact is described the previous section; non-academic impact is considerably overlapping.
"Beyond inference"
=== developers of computer verification and proof tools, as our work will contribute new techniques and understanding of the tools themselves, through extending their application, through the use of f-abstracts to bridge the gap between formal and informal proof.
=== mathematicians and users of mathematics will have access to tools that allow them to create and access new mathematics more quickly: specifically, our work on f-abstracts will contribute to developing new ways in which such users can access the benefits of computer proof, while being shielded from its complexity
=== mathematics educators, and those building tools for them will have new material and techniques for teaching proof, in particular we hope to deploy our techniques through our partnership with Maplesoft, with products and services used by more than 8000 educational institutions and other organisations, in over 90 countries.
Of "Towards impact"
=== researchers, and users, managers, and funders of research, who need to understand drivers for success, failure and impact of foundational research; track quantitative and qualitative whole-life indicators of promise and progress; develop resilient plans, responsive to such indicators as research proceeds; interpret impact to diverse audiences, to shape research strategy and practice; and, crucially, do this without impeding research quality and progress or increasing the burdens on researchers.
=== All those who communicate the impact of foundational research of a mathematical nature, either within or beyond their own community, or in professional settings such as museums, with a new framing as "Cultural capital" enabling broader thinking and assessment.
Publications
Corneli J
(2019)
Argumentation Theory for Mathematical Argument
in Argumentation
Hollings C
(2020)
Two letters from Otto Neugebauer to Thomas Eric Peet on ancient Egyptian mathematics
in Historia Mathematica
Dunning D
(2021)
The Work of Writing Programs: Logic and Inscriptive Practice in the History of Computing
in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Szabó M
(2021)
From the West to the East and Back Again: Hungary's Early Years in the Ryad.
in IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Dunning DE
(2021)
The Logician in the Archive: John Venn's Diagrams and Victorian Historical Thinking.
in Journal of the history of ideas
Pease A
(2019)
Explanation in mathematical conversations: an empirical investigation.
in Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
Akande EO
(2023)
Predicting inflation component drivers in Nigeria: a stacked ensemble approach.
in SN business & economics
Rittberg C
(2018)
Epistemic injustice in mathematics
in Synthese
Löwe B
(2021)
Enabling mathematical cultures: introduction
in Synthese
Ward J
(2019)
TCBH Duncan Tanner Essay Prize Winner 2018 Financing the Information Age: London TeleCity, the Legacy of IT-82, and the Selling of British Telecom
in Twentieth Century British History
| Title | Top Secret: From Secret Cyphers to Cybersecurity (Science Museum, London) |
| Description | This exhibition uncovered the remarkable world of codebreaking, ciphers and secret communications. From the trenches of the First World War to the latest in cyber security, Top Secret explored over a century's worth of communications intelligence through hand-written documents, declassified files and previously unseen artefacts from the Science Museum Group's and GCHQ's historic collections. Visitors could: Trace the evolution of the gadgets and devices used to conceal crucial messages and to decode the secrets of others. Hear from GCHQ staff doing top secret work to defend against terror attacks and serious crime and discover the challenges of maintaining digital security in the 21st century. Explore the story of Alan Turing and the team of Bletchley Park codebreakers who broke the Enigma code in 1941, uncover spy-craft from 1960's Cold War espionage and challenge your friends and family to become codebreakers in our interactive puzzle zone. Top Secret coincided with the 100th anniversary of GCHQ, the UK's Intelligence, Security and Cyber agency. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | This exhibition explores the history of intelligence, encryption, and surveillance. I developed a story on Zircon, a failed British spy satellite, and supported development of other stories through research, curation, and exhibit design. As of the Science Museum Group's 2019-20 annual report, the exhibition had 206,000 visits, 20% above projections. The New York Times called this exhibition "cleverly crafted". |
| URL | https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/what-was-on/top-secret |
| Description | Main theme A Practice-based philosophy of mathematics. Traditional philosophy of mathematics considers mathematics to be the paradigmatic deductive science; its human practices and cultural variations are seen as mere contingent phenomena that belong into the realm of sociology of mathematics. In this tradition, philosophy deals with a deductive ideal of mathematics that results from abstracting the divergent social phenomena away. Our work challenges this traditional view, studying the philosophical significance of social and cultural diversity, human interaction, and variations in mathematical research practices. (A1) Records of online collaborative mathematical activity provide us with a novel, rich, searchable, accessible and sizeable source of data for empirical investigations into mathematical practice. We show how the resources of crowdsourced mathematics can be used to help formulate and answer questions about mathematical practice, and what their limitations might be. We describe both quantitative and qualitative approaches, reviewing work from cognitive history ; social psychology; human-computer interaction; network analysis; argumentation theory; empirical; sociology of scientific knowledge; and ethnography. We suggest how these diverse methods can be applied to crowdsourced mathematics and when each might be appropriate. (A2) To adequately model mathematical arguments the analyst must be able to represent the mathematical objects under discussion and the relationships between them, as well as inferences drawn about these objects and relationships as the discourse unfolds. We introduce a framework with these properties, which has been used to analyse mathematical dialogues and expository texts. The framework can recover salient elements of discourse at, and within, the sentence level, as well as the way mathematical content connects to form larger argumentative structures. (A3) Analysis of online mathematics forums can help reveal how explanation is used by mathematicians; we contend that this use of explanation may help to provide an informal conceptualization of simplicity. We extracted six conjectures from recent philosophical work on the occurrence and characteristics of explanation in mathematics and tested these conjectures against a corpus derived from online mathematical discussions. Our findings suggest that explanation is widespread in mathematical practice and that it occurs not only in proofs but also in other mathematical contexts, and provides further evidence for the utility of empirical methods in addressing philosophical problems. Main theme B Culture and context Multiple strands of work look at the culture and context of the production of modern mathematics and computing: (B1) Ada Lovelace has been celebrated since the 1950's as the "first programmer", a computing and AI pioneer, and an icon of women in science, but before 2015 there was much scepticism as to her mathematical talent. In the first investigation of Lovelace's manuscripts by historians of mathematics, we showed that she was a gifted, perceptive and knowledgeable mathematician. The work has had considerable impact in museums and digital creativity - see impact section. The initial work was done under a previous grant, deepened in this grant with further findings captured in a monograph, also translated into Spanish. (B2) Postdoc David Dunning explores the entanglement of logic and computing by focusing on the activity of writing. Although mathematical logic is sometimes cast as the immaterial spirit of the computer's material body, the study of logic also takes place in the physical world through the manipulation of symbols on paper. Already in the 19th century, mathematical logic was understood to be related to mechanization, with symbolic notations seen as tools that opened possibilities but required new kinds of work. Turning to early electronic computing in the 1950s, he observes that researchers similarly relied on novel inscriptive techniques to mitigate labor. Dunning also investigates English probability theorist, logician, and historian John Venn (1834-1923), who, like the overlapping circles of his famous diagrams, operated at a site of productive intersection, exhibiting an epistemic apparatus shaped by a mathematical probability, formal logic, and British historicism. Scholarly interest in Venn has tended to isolate these elements; Dunning showed the deep continuity connecting them. (B3) Postdoc Máté Szabó considers Péter's talk Rekursivität und Konstruktivität, delivered at the Constructivity in Mathematics Colloquium in 1957, where she challenged Church's Thesis from a constructive point of view. The discussion of her argument and motivations is connected to her earlier work on recursion theory as well as her later work on theoretical computer science. He also considers Hungary's early involvement in the Comecon's Unified System of Computers (Ryad) and its impact on the country's computerization. This case study details Hungary's complex situation at the time: its engagement with Western computer companies, its willingness to participate in Ryad, and the impact of its newly introduced economic reforms on these processes. (B4) Co-investigator Christopher Hollings's book of the 1936 International Congress of Mathematicians examines the historically unique conditions under which it took place in Oslo in 1936: relying heavily on unpublished archival sources, he considers the different goals of the various participants in the Congress, most notably those of the Norwegian organizers, and the Nazi-led German delegation, and investigates the reasons for the absence of the proposed Soviet and Italian delegations. |
| Exploitation Route | Wide variety of of impacts reported in the impacts section |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/martinu/ |
| Description | 4. Details of the impact We present impacts in the area of creativity, culture and society on a network of collaborators: curators; composers; and a diverse group of media and other professionals who themselves influence public culture and society, together with impact on understanding, learning and participation through contributing to the public commemoration of Ada Lovelace. Impacts on creativity, culture and society: museums and libraries In 2014, Oxford Mathematics were invited by Oxford's Bodleian Library, which holds extensive archives of the Lovelace family, to collaborate in marking Ada Lovelace's 2015 Bicentenary. Following this invitation Hollings, Martin and Rice were given access to the archive during 2014-15 in order to analyse the manuscripts described in section 2. The transcription of the letters [3] was made available online in late 2015. The early (pre-publication) results of this striking research underpinned two events: Oxford's Lovelace Bicentenary Conference (8 Dec 2015, 400 attendees); and a display of Lovelace's mathematical papers co-curated by Martin and Hollings at Oxford's Bodleian Library (Oct-Dec 2015) [A] which attracted 32,394 visitors [B]. In parallel, material from the Lovelace letter archive was loaned to the Science Museum in London for their exhibition on Ada Lovelace (Oct 2015-Mar 2016) [A]. A Lancet review of the two exhibitions praised a "nuanced picture of an original thinker" [C]. The publicity surrounding the conference, exhibition and publication of the transcripts led to enthusiastic approaches from a number of potential collaborators, including British composer Emily Howard and the BBC. Oxford's authoritative work [1, 2, 3] led to further approaches from curators keen to collaborate to present Lovelace, having previously been hampered by the absence of scholarly research to inform curatorial judgement of this controversial figure. Leading on from the Bodleian exhibition, Martin was invited to co-curate a display of facsimile material at the world's largest computing museum, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, located next to the Google campus at the heart of Silicon Valley. Thinking Big: Ada, Countess of Lovelace opened in late December 2015, with major sponsorship from Google, and ran for 4 years, with a footfall of 450,000 [D, B]. A substantial outreach programme attracted new visitors, especially from under-represented groups: it included a lecture by Martin and Rice to an audience of 600 in person and 6,000 online [G]; weekly "Women in Computing" museum tours for families and the general public; and monthly workshops for local schools targeting girls and minorities [F]. Prior to COVID-19, a version of the display was "on tour", most recently at Facebook's Silicon Valley campus. For the Royal Holloway Exhibition Space in Egham, Martin co-curated 200 Years of Becoming Digital (Sept-Nov 2018), winner of the 2018 Great Exhibitions Prize of the British Society for the History of Science, who praised how it "excellently portrayed the overlooked contribution of women...and captured the audiences' imaginations" [H]. Advice on using material from the Lovelace archive has been given to curators of other Oxford exhibitions, most notably Sappho to Suffrage (Mar 2018-Feb 2019), and to Hinckley and District Museum (Oct 2019), Guildhall Museum (May-Oct 2018), and Gunnersbury Park Museum (June 2018). The impact on museum professionals was assessed through professional impact evaluation [F, G] commissioned by Oxford Mathematics, including in-depth interviews with 13 collaborators, evaluation of sample events, and wider contextual analysis, and is summed up by the Project Evaluator [E]: "The robustness and novelty of the research has empowered curators, cutting through controversy and enabling new activities which use history to provoke audience reflection on current and future cultural issues. In a change to current practice, curators now recognise the value of future such collaborations with mathematicians." For a US curator: "Ada was a very controversial figure and not much is known about her; this was a big deal. Nobody of Oxford's calibre had done this sort of deep dive. When there are current cultural dialogues - using history can help having an exhibit about a female mathematician around this time of cultural discourse on women and their capabilities and contributions to computer science stimulated dialogue on these issues" [F]. An Oxford curator went further, identifying the collaboration as "a strong bit of gas in the tank to push us toward tangible changes in how we work with researchers We had a natural community, humanities, and this very much opened our eyes to the idea of working outwith that community. We do have collections that are scientific or might be of interest to both, humanities and sciences, and the public are interested in that too. We have collections that tell many many more stories. And the idea that we tell a story that starts in the past and moves forward into the current time is a very empowering thing that we have tried to replicate" [F]. Impacts on creativity, culture and society: composers Emily Howard is a British composer with regular commissions from leading international orchestras and concert halls. She presented a 2011 song-cycle inspired by Lovelace at Oxford's 2015 conference, and as a result of discovering the new Oxford research into Lovelace's mathematics she invited Martin to collaborate on a project on Lovelace and AI for London's Barbican Concert Hall. Martin worked with Howard and other composers to interpret Lovelace's mathematical writings, and to recast algorithmic aspects of her work, particularly the functional algebra of [2], in terms of modern AI for use in composition. Howard's resulting composition, But then, what are these numbers?, was a setting of a Lovelace text proposed by Martin, who also advised rising young composer Robert Laidlow on the novel Lovelace percussion instrument he built for his AI-inspired piece Alter. These and other works were premiered by the Britten Sinfonia on 2 November 2019 in a concert Ada Lovelace Imagining the Analytical Engine, part of the Barbican's 2019 AI Festival [I]. The Guardian reviewer enjoyed a "gratifying sense of theatrics", and audience evaluation [G] evidenced enthusiasm for the new concepts (typical comment: "it gave my mind a real work-out"). The significance of the impact on composers, as summarised by the Project Evaluator, was "its catalytic role in the creative processes of composition, in stimulating both well-received new work, and new approaches to composition expected to be of increasing future importance" [E]. Robert Laidlow summed up the impact on his creative processes: "Using these algorithms is a new way of expressing research and music and finding a new way in. We invented a new instrument. We had to learn how to write for it. Those two things were quite significant artistically. It opened up a new methodology for creating specific projects, re-defining the way you can use technology in your work and the way you can approach technology in music. There is a lot of other work coming out of this." [F]. For Emily Howard: "I have a new piece with a new way of thinking. [Oxford's researchers] were fundamentally crucial to me making that piece. I have treated the material so mathematically, which comes from how they explained it. That really fed into the process hugely. My work is based on taking maths and translating it into sound, so having a very clear presentation of Lovelace's maths is very helpful and wasn't presented before [Oxford's book]" [F]. Impacts on understanding, learning and participation: contributing to commemoration of Lovelace and making mathematics accessible As visibility grew, numerous potential collaborators got in touch, seeing the potential for Oxford's research to be a catalyst for devising their own activities which, in turn, influence others in public culture and society. Many of these approaches were associated with Ada Lovelace Day, a global celebration of women in STEM held every October since 2009: its 10th anniversary was marked by a US Senate resolution, drafted with Martin's advice [J]. Science writer Georgina Ferry approached Oxford to collaborate on a two-part BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Lovelace's letters ('The Letters of Ada Lovelace: The Poetry of Mathematics'; 14 Sept 2015 + 3 repeats). Ferry commented: "Ursula's work helped me to develop a more nuanced picture of what kind of person [Lovelace] was, how serious she was about her mathematics, when she could be." [F, K]. Invited presentations at literary festivals included Hay (2016, 2018), Edinburgh (2018) and Oxford (2018); media work included Radio 3's the Verb (20 April 2018, audience 60,000); BBC Newsnight (11 April 2018, audience 600,000) interviewed Martin about Lovelace's mathematical learning and her 'connectedness' with scholars and others in the society of her time [K]. Oxford Mathematics was approached by The British Computer Society's Computing at School initiative to co-create a Lovelace special issue of its cs4fn magazine (Autumn 2015, 20,000 copies distributed to 2000 schools) [L]. COVID-19 disrupted planned Continuing Professional Development for computing teachers, using Lovelace's work, due for pilot and evaluation from May 2020. Between 2015 and 2019, the Oxford team accepted approximately 40 invitations to work with schools, companies, maths and computing organisations, and local history groups, creating bespoke activities which used the past to stimulate thinking about the present and future, for example presenting Lovelace in the context of technology, local history, or today's women in mathematics. These have reached a total live audience of approximately 7,500, often amplified online, for example as part of the free open lecture programme at Gresham College (150 live + 12,000 online) [G]. Professional evaluation of the audience response to events held in 2019 found that they changed perceptions of participants, who found mathematics "more practical, more socially engaged than I thought"; were surprised and sad at "the erasing of women from history"; with the account of 19C mathematicians as a "community providing support for its members so they can achieve" providing a "more inspiring, more hopeful view" [G]. A general interest book by Hollings, Martin and Rice, Ada Lovelace: the making of a computer scientist, 2018, (translated into Spanish as Ada Lovelace: la formación de una científica informática, 2020) enhanced the accessibility of the research of [1, 2] to non-mathematicians, by-passing the technicalities of Victorian algebra to explain the mathematical content and context at roughly GCSE level: for example, Lovelace's striking diagrams of the Bridges of Königsberg problem are used to illustrate her algorithmic thinking. As of 1 June 2020 the book had sold 2,520 copies and received positive reviews in mainstream, literary and educational publications [M]; comments include "Dusty archives dance into life" (New York Review of Books), "admirable clarity" (Women's History Review), "mathematics explained clearly and in detail" (London Mathematical Society Newsletter) and "The one I'd recommend ... much excitement, of a mathematical flavour" (Association for Women in Mathematics, in a survey for educators of books about Lovelace). Impacts on creativity, culture and society: other collaborators The Project Evaluator's summary reveals that the significance of the impact on the professionals involved in such collaborations was [E]: "The confidence generated by the calibre of the research, and the additional insights provided through working with the Oxford team, empowered collaborators to incorporate Lovelace material in their own professional work. This in turn influenced others, through changing perceptions of the current and future importance of mathematics, and of women's contributions". The Oxford research was of vital significance for these interviewees in interpreting the still controversial Lovelace: "I can talk about her...with much more rigour and confidence and understanding" (UK curator and public intellectual); "[Oxford's] work helped me to develop a more nuanced picture of what kind of person she was, how serious she was about her mathematics" (science writer). The founder of Ada Lovelace Day said: "For me, as a public face promoting Lovelace as a figurehead; I do get a lot of people with negative comments. Having the mathematics letters and the book available means I have an objective base; it is really valuable to have a reliable source to point at. I'm not a scholar. Having a scholar producing work that looks at everything in an even-handed and sensible manner is a godsend. It really is important to re-balance the public view of Lovelace. I haven't had to do this because [Oxford] has done it. Having that available has changed the conversation" [F]. 5. Sources to corroborate the impact [A] Bodleian Libraries website announcement of the Bicentenary exhibition, 8 Oct 2015, naming Martin as co-curator, and corroborating the loan of items to the Science Museum. [B] Emails from (1) the Bodleian Library (June 2020) and (2) the Computer History Museum (June 2020), corroborating attendance figures for their exhibitions. [C] Review of Ada Lovelace exhibitions at the Bodleian Library and London Science Museum, The Lancet, 31 Oct 2015, including quote in section 4. [D] Computer History Museum press release for their Ada Lovelace exhibition on the Globe Newswire website, 10 Dec 2015, corroborating details of the exhibition. [E] Letter, Project Evaluator, the Principal of the Technology Development Group, summarising the benefits of this project for curators, composers and other professional collaborators. [F] Impact Evaluation of Ada Lovelace Project 2015 - 2020, Technology Development Group, June 2020, corroborating benefits to curators, composers and other professional collaborators. Includes details of Computer Science Museum workshops for local schools (pp.15-16) and the BBC Radio dramatisation of Ada Lovelace's letters. [G] Audience Evaluation of Ada Lovelace presentations 2019, Technology Development Group, June 2020, corroborating benefits to participants in events connected to the research. Includes details of the lecture at the Computer History Museum (p.3). [H] Royal Holloway website announcement of the 2018 Great Exhibitions Prize of the British Society for the History of Science, corroborating Martin's involvement in the exhibition [I] Barbican concert programme for 'Ada Lovelace - Imagining the Analytical Engine', 2 Nov 2019, confirming details of the musical works; Martin's participation in the after-show discussion; and the influence on Emily Howard's piece (p.9) and Robert Laidlow's piece (p.10) [J] US Senate Resolution on Ada Lovelace Day: (1) Letter from the Founder of Ada Lovelace Day, who worked on drafting the Resolution, confirming the contribution made by Martin; (2) US Senate Resolution 592 on Ada Lovelace Day, 25 July 2018 [K] Media appearances featuring Ursula Martin and the new analysis of the Lovelace archive: (1) BBC Radio 4's 'The Letters of Ada Lovelace', 14 Sept 2015, crediting the Bodleian Library's Lovelace archive; (2) Twitter clip of Ursula Martin's interview on BBC Newsnight, 11 April 2018; (3) BBC Radio 3's The Verb on 'Algorithms', 20 April 2018, with Ursula Martin [L] Issue 20 of the British Computer Society's cs4fn magazine, 'Ada Lovelace: the computer scientist without a computer', acknowledging Martin as an editor, and funding from her EPSRC research grant EP/K040251/2 (bottom of p.20). [M] Reviews of 'Ada Lovelace: The Making of a Computer scientist': (1) New York Review of Books, 22 Nov 2018, by Jenny Uglow; (2) Women's History Review, 30 Sept 2018, by Patricia Fara; (3) London Mathematical Society Newsletter, May 2019, by Allan Grady, pp.37-38; (4) Association for Women in Mathematics Newsletter, May-June 2019, pp. 20-21. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | Bodleian Library |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Department | Bodleian Library |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Specialist knowledge of material pertaining to the history of AI in collections of Bodleian Library and Oxford Museum of the History of Science |
| Collaborator Contribution | Professional staging and publicity for public exhibition September 2022 |
| Impact | Public exhibition September 2022 in Bodleian Library and History of Science Museum supported by online materials |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | "Hay Levels" YouTube video |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | A YouTube video of Ursula Martin's "Hay Levels" YouTube video, part of a Hay Festival series showing 'bite size answers to big questions' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/g49Sy9T1BUg |
| Description | Armadillo Magazine |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Amadillo Magazine Children's books reviews, circa summer 2018 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.armadillomagazine.co.uk/non-fiction-1 |
| Description | BBC Radio Oxford Lilley Mitchell show |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | 7 minute interview in between David Bowie and Queen |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06dbvbb |
| Description | Bodleian Libraries "Babel exhibition" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Bodleian Libraries "Babel: adventures in translation" museum exhibition 15 February - 2 June 2019. Ursula Martin advised and wrote captions for programming related items, including Lovelace "first programme". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/whatson/whats-on/current-exhibitions |
| Description | Computer History Museum, Mounrtain View, California + Facebook live streaming |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on Ada Lovelace and her life and work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://www.computerhistory.org/events/upcoming/#ada-lovelace-making-computer-scientist |
| Description | Edinburgh Book Festival with Darryl Cunningham |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on Ada Lovelace and her life and work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/darryl-cunningham-ursula-martin-12046 |
| Description | Erasmus Darwin House |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Seminar day at Erasmus Darwin House Lichfield on "Lunar women". Presentation on Ada Lovelace and her life and work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.erasmusdarwin.org/event/seminar-day-lunar-women/ |
| Description | General talk on Lovelace's life and work, and our research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Audience included the Oxford Mirzakhani Society and visiting female Cambridge maths students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | History of women philosophers event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Lecture "Ada Lovelace 1815-1852: Logic and Computing Before the Computer" "The History of Logic: Women's Contributions", Paderborn, Germany. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/event/the-history-of-logic-womens-contributions/ |
| Description | Lecture University of Kent |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | "The scientific life of Ada Lovelace, and why computer scientists should care about history" by Ursula Martin at School of Computing, University of Kent 50 CS students and staff. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/eventscalendar.html?view_by=upcoming&eid=37289 |
| Description | Lecture at Randolph-Macon College, Virginia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | "Beyond the strength of a woman's physical power: Mathematics, Machines, and the Mind of Ada Lovelace" by Adrian Rice. Lecture was free and open to the public. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.rmc.edu/news-and-calendar/current-news/2018/08/28/oct.-9-mathematics-professor-to-presen... |
| Description | Lecture in the Philadelphia Area Seminar on the History of Mathematics, Villanova University, PA, USA. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 'Ada Lovelace: The Making of a Computer Scientist' by Adrian Rice. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/artsci/mathematics/newsevents/pashom.html |
| Description | Leverhulme Centre for the future of Intelligence Cambridge |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Closed seminar, AI origin myths. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://lcfi.ac.uk/events/origin-myths-artificial-intelligence-histories-tec/ |
| Description | Mathematics Today |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | 'Ada Lovelace, Mathematician' in Volume 51 Issue 6 (December), pp. 254-255. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:922e6961-dba6-4a50-a161-bf6cd2698752 |
| Description | Musuem of the History of Science Oxford |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on Ada Lovelace and her life and work. Repeated in Jan 2019 due to popular demand. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019 |
| URL | https://hsm.ox.ac.uk/event/ada-lovelace-the-making-of-a-computer-scientist |
| Description | New York Review of Books review |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | "Stepping out of Byron's Shadow" by Jenny Uglow. via Bodleian PR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/11/22/ada-lovelace-byron-shadow/?sub_key=5bdd796816d47 |
| Description | New York Times website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Article in NYT's interactive "Overlooked" Obituaries - on Ada Lovelace. Quotes Ursula Martin and other scholars/authors focused on Ada and her work. Links to Ursula Martin's "Research in Conversation" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-ada-lovelace.html |
| Description | Podcast for Bodleian Library on Ada Lovelace and Mary Shelley manuscripts |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Live audience of 150 + further access online |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/making-machines-mary-shelley-and-ada-lovelace |
| Description | Presenation, Modern British Studies 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on the history of British telecommunications. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Presentation, Bristol University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Talk at Bristol University's History department. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Presentation, Tensions of Europe 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on history of cybernetics in British telecom. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Presentation, University of Oxford |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 'Information Theory and the Post Office'. History of Mathematics Seminar Series, Queen's College, University of Oxford, May 20th, 2019. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Resolution of US Senate recognizing Ada Lovelace |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Ursula Martin advised on wording. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/sres592/BILLS-115sres592ats.pdf |
| Description | Royal Holloway University of London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Ursula Martin advised on Lovelace exhibition |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/research-and-teaching/departments-and-schools/computer-science/news/... |
| Description | Talk, Mathematical Collaboration III, Bristol |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 'Communicating a Mathematical Theory of Communication: Academia, Industry, and Bureaucracy at the London Symposia on Information Theory'. Mathematical Collaboration III, University of Bristol, April 29th, 2019. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | The Guardian |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Article on the sale of a copy of Ada's first edition algorithm, with Ursula Martin interview comments |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | The Oxford Scientist |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The Oxford Scientist #1, Hilary Term 2018. "The Oxford Scientist Interviews Prof Ursula Martin", pages 9-10. Really lovely interview with Ursula Martin where she talks a lot about Ada, and the book. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | The School Librarian magazine, School Library Association |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Quarterly journal, circulation 4000 and readership 13300. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.dropbox.com/s/ysqbqxgl8gt9b13/The%20School%20Librarian%201%20Oct%202018%20Review.pdf?dl=... |
| Description | The Smithsonian |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Article again on the sale of Ada's first edition paper, picking up on Guardian article above with Ursula Martin comments |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sold-rare-copy-ada-lovelaces-groundbreaking-computer-algor... |
| Description | Times Literary Supplement book review |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | 'Wild Spirits: Illustrating the Lives of Accomplished Women' by Corin Throsby. Review of our book and Miranda Seymour's 'In Byron's Wake'. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/private/wild-spirits/ |
| Description | UK Mathematics Trust, London Science Museum |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Lecture to circa 200 Math Olympiad competitors and families, later on YouTube. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNS4-6cS_AU&feature=youtu.be |
| Description | University of Oxford AI podcast |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Podcast with Andrew Hodges and Ursula Martin on history of AI. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/UniofOxford/status/1064428317292412928 |
| Description | University of Oxford AI podcast |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Podcast with Andrew Hodges and Jacob Ward on history of AI. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/UniofOxford/status/1064428317292412928 |
| Description | University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming USA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on Ada Lovelace and her life and work as part of celebrations of 150 years of female suffrage in Wyoming, the first US state to offer women the vote |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Who Writes The Future? Summer School, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Who Writes the Future? was a computing science fiction writing summer school for 14-17 year olds attending Oxfordshire state schools. It aimed to increase the number of young, diverse voices writing about the future of computing in a world where narratives from scientists, politicians, and the media dominate discussion. The summer school combined creative writing skills, the history of futurology, and insights into current computing research at the University of Oxford with treasures from the Bodleian's collections. Participants worked with a professional writer and illustrator to produce an anthology of short stories. 17 Participants were recruited from six Oxfordshire secondary schools. We advertised through schools because teachers were best placed to identify those who would benefit most from this opportunity. We provided information, promotional posters and flyers for them to use. Once participants were recruited, communications were made via parental email. All meals and transport costs were covered for participants so that income would not pose a barrier to participation. A professional author, Jasmine Richards, and illustrator, Nurbanu Asena, were recruited via advertisements in trade press, and subsequent shortlisting and interview from applications. In advance of the cause, Alessandra Vetrugno researched several examples of futurology, mainly from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera. The project team worked on the final selection with Jasmine who then developed the Summer school programme from the initial brief. Two participants with SEND visited the Weston Library with a family member in advance of the summer school to meet staff, familiarize themselves with the venue, ask questions and check access arrangements. Participants completed a one-week summer school at the Weston Library which included consideration of the interaction of technology and society, world building within the sci-fi genre, characters and story arc drawing on Bodleian archive materials, collaboration with researchers to consider the societal impact of future developments in computing, development of illustrations, editing and responding to feedback. Participants also had the opportunity to use the Bibliographic Press and to visit Trinity College. 16 participants completed their own short story during the summer school. One did not continue after the first day for health reasons. 12 participants were able to attend a 'roundtable day' in October to review the final proofs of stories and illustrations and to provide evaluative feedback. Participants then attended the launch of the hardcopy edition of their stories at the Oxford IF event at the Weston Library, staffing an event stand to showcase their work to members of the public attending the event. Copies of the anthology were placed in their school libraries and for loan from local public libraries. An electronic version is available for free download from the Bodleian website. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |