Marcus du Sautoy
Marcus Peter Francis du Sautoy is a British mathematician and author of popular science books. In 1996, he was awarded the Title of Distinction of Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and in 2008, he was appointed to the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science and a fellowship at New College. He was formerly a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and Wadham College, Oxford. He was previously President of the Mathematical Association, an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Senior Media Fellow, and a Royal Society University Research Fellow.
Education and early life
Du Sautoy was born in London to Bernard du Sautoy, employed in the computer industry, and Jennifer du Sautoy, who left the Foreign Office to raise her children. He grew up in Henley-on-Thames. His grandfather, Peter du Sautoy, was chairman of the publisher Faber and Faber, and managed the estates of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Du Sautoy was educated at Gillotts Comprehensive School and King James's Sixth Form College and Wadham College, Oxford, where he was awarded a first class honours degree in Mathematics. In 1991 he completed a doctorate in mathematics on discrete groups, analytic groups and Poincaré series, supervised by Dan Segal.Career and research
Mathematical research
According to the Royal Society, his research "uses classical tools from number theory to explore the mathematics of symmetry". Du Sautoy's academic work concerns mainly group theory and number theory.Popularisation of mathematics
Du Sautoy is known for his work popularising mathematics, and has been named by The Independent on Sunday as one of the UK's leading scientists. He is also on the advisory board of Mangahigh.com.In voice
Du Sautoy has promoted BBC Radio 4's Today programme and is a regular contributor to the same network's In Our Time.In December 2006, du Sautoy delivered the 2006 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures under the collective title The Num8er My5teries. This was only the third time the subject of the lectures had been mathematics – on the first occasion in 1978, when the lecture was delivered by Erik Christopher Zeeman, du Sautoy had been a schoolboy in the audience.
In print
Du Sautoy typically writes for The Times and The Guardian. Du Sautoy has also written numerous academic articles and books on mathematics, the most recent being an exploration of the current state of creativity in artificial intellgience: The Creativity Code.In a 2006 article published in Seed magazine, du Sautoy discussed the Hilbert-Pólya conjecture: a way for advances in quantum physics to provide insight into the Riemann hypothesis.
On TV
Du Sautoy presented the BBC Four television programme, Mind Games, and co-hosts the TV series School of Hard Sums with Dara Ó Briain. On the latter show, he poses three mathematical questions with real-world application. Ó Briain and a guest then try to solve the problems, using rigorous and experimental methods, respectively.Du Sautoy has also appeared on Channel 4 News.
Publications
- The Music of the Primes
- Finding Moonshine
- Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature
- The Num8er My5teries: A Mathematical Odyssey Through Everyday Life
- What We Cannot Know
- The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of Science
- The Creativity Code: How AI Is Learning to Write, Paint and Think
Television work
- Mindgames. Presented 20 episodes of puzzle gameshow with regular guests Kathy Sykes and Michael Rosen.
- The Music of the Primes. One hour documentary based on his book.
- Painting with Numbers. Four fifteen-minute programmes covering numerous topics from risk and probability to concepts of infinity, from codes and cryptography to flowers and football.
- The Num8er My5teries: Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, five Lectures about the great unsolved problems of mathematics.
- The Story of Maths is a four-part series first broadcast on BBC Four. In this series he discovers techniques and theories from different times and cultures.
- Horizon: Alan and Marcus Go Forth and Multiply. Alan Davies embarks on a maths odyssey with the help of mathematician Marcus du Sautoy.
- Horizon: The Secret You. Marcus du Sautoy investigates self-awareness.
- Horizon: How Long is a Piece of String?. Alan Davies attempts to answer the proverbial question: how long is a piece of string? Featuring Marcus du Sautoy.
- Horizon: What Makes a Genius?. Marcus du Sautoy asks if geniuses' brains are fundamentally different from his.
- The Beauty of Diagrams. Produced by Michael Waterhouse and directed by Steven Clarke, Marcus du Sautoy discusses influential scientific diagrams, starting with Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci's iconic anatomical drawing which follows the geometrical ideas of the Roman architect Vitruvius.
- The Code. A three-part documentary series which began broadcasting on 27 July 2011.
- Faster Than the Speed of Light?. Marcus du Sautoy discusses the recent discovery, the faster-than-light neutrino anomaly, that neutrinos may travel faster than light. First broadcast on 19 October 2011.
- Horizon: The Hunt for AI. Marcus Du Sautoy asks how close mankind is to creating computers or robots that can think for themselves – artificial intelligence, AI. First broadcast on 3 April 2012.
- '. Co-host with Dara Ó Briain. Dara and guests attempt to solve problems posed by Marcus Du Sautoy with mathematics or through trial-and-error. First broadcast on 16 April 2012.
- ' Professor Marcus du Sautoy explores why we are driven to measure and quantify the world around us and why we have reduced the universe to just a handful of fundamental units of measurement. First broadcast on 10 June 2013.
- The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms Mathematician Professor Marcus du Sautoy demystifies the hidden world of algorithms. First broadcast on 24 September 2015.
Awards and honours
Personal life
Du Sautoy lives in London with his family and plays football and the trumpet. He met his wife Shani while a postdoctoral researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Together they have three children, a son Tomer and adopted twin daughters Magaly and Ina, who are being raised Jewish.Du Sautoy is an atheist but has stated that as holder of the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science his focus is going to be "very much on the science and less on religion," perhaps suggesting a difference of emphasis compared to his predecessor in the post, Professor Richard Dawkins. He has described his own religion as being "Arsenal – football", as he sees religion as wanting to belong to a community.
Du Sautoy is a supporter of Common Hope, an organisation that helps people in Guatemala.