The London Institute for Mathematical Sciences is delighted to welcome actress, author and tech entrepreneur Talulah Riley to its board of Trustees. 

Riley, who is doing a physics and mathematics degree at the Open University, first became interested in the field at school when she witnessed the double-slit experiment, in which light behaves as both a wave and a particle. It changed her life, she says. She later pursued the passion with the encouragement of her then husband, the tech billionaire Elon Musk. 

Musk arranged for her to sit in on classes at Caltech's prestigious Physics 11 course, taught by Prof. Tom Tombrello. The late Prof. Tombrello was a founding trustee of the London Institute. As a trustee, Riley will help fundraise for a $7.5m junior research fellowship programme in memory of Prof. Tombrello, which we are creating with Caltech, as well as raise awareness of the Institute outside the scientific community.

The London Institute is a new kind of research organisation that is dedicated to speeding up discovery. Our focus on peak performance, full-time commitment to research and the level of support we offer our scientists empower them to make the biggest breakthroughs. 

As a London Institute Trustee, the actress, author and tech entrepreneur Talulah Riley will support our mission to accelerate discovery.

Welcome, Talulah

Can AI do maths? The answer is yes—at least when it comes to solving tough geometry problems, set as part of the annual International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). Developed by AI specialists at Google DeepMind, the AlphaGeometry programme correctly answered 25 out of 30 such questions put to it, according to a paper in *Nature*. These results are “stunning and breathtaking”, said Gregor Dolinar, the president of the IMO.

Asked to comment by three separate publications, scientists at the London Institute sounded a more cautious note. For instance, Mikhail Burtsev told the *FT* that the "steeper challenge" will be if AI can “discover new mathematics to solve a question that has never yet been answered”.

In the *New Scientist*, Prof. Yang-Hui He observed that, to reach this milestone, AlphaGeometry must have access to far more mathematical knowledge, and be able to tell when a theorem is provable or interesting. In any case, Thomas Fink argued in *The Times*, AI lacks the near-mystical instincts for deep mathematical insight. “Contrary to popular belief, advancing mathematics requires a great deal of intuition.”

Our scientists comment on the success of AlphaGeometry, the latest AI programme from Google DeepMind, in tackling geometrical problems.

AI at the Olympiad

The record for the shortest paper in mathematics belongs to Conway and Soifer. In 2005, they published a paper in *The American Mathematical Monthly* containing just two words and two figures. The title posed a question about the number of unit equilateral triangles required to cover a larger equilateral triangle of side *n* + *ε*. The paper reads “*n*² + 2 can”.

There’s a rare satisfaction in reading an entire research paper in minutes. But apart from reminding readers of the joy of insight, making a paper as short as possible encourages authors to find the most economical proof or argument. Concision and elegance go hand in hand. Short papers can also have an exceptionally high impact. The 1949 paper that set in motion the field of game theory was just a single page, and ultimately won Nash the Nobel Prize.

We are establishing the Conway Prize for the best short paper written by a member of the London Institute. It’s an annual prize of £500, awarded at the end of the year. The only condition is that the paper be published in a peer-reviewed journal and be under two pages (in the format of an APS journal).

The London Institute is establishing an annual prize of £500 for the best short paper in theoretical research written by one of its members.

Conway Prize

We are pleased to welcome Madeleine Hall as our new science writer. She comes to us fresh from completing her PhD in mathematical biology, which she did at Imperial College London, with a focus on microorganism mobility.

Hall was brought up in rural Worcestershire and went to school there, before doing her undergraduate degree in Mathematics at Edinburgh University, where she got a First. Always someone of broad interests, who at various times considered becoming a lawyer, a doctor or an actor, she applies the same eclectic approach to science and the communication of science. Her research background has been at the intersection of biofluid dynamics, computational micromechanics and the genetics of behaviour. She has written articles for *Chalkdust*, the “magazine for the mathematically curious”, about Gladys West, one of the brains behind GPS; the consequences of conditional probability on our everyday lives; and the intricate history of Venn diagrams.

When not writing about science, Hall can be found running, swimming in the Serpentine, or playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor on the piano.

As our new science writer, Madeleine Hall will help us to communicate our discoveries, share our joy in insight and promote our mission. 

Welcome, Madeleine

We are pleased to welcome Prof. Ilya Shkredov as our inaugural Arnold Fellow. Our five three-year Arnold Fellowships were set up in response to the conflict in Ukraine. Named after the Ukrainian-born mathematician Vladimir Arnold, they are ring-fenced for outstanding mathematicians and theoretical physicists from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. 

Prof. Shkredov was born and brought up at the military base Kubinka-2 outside Moscow. After a flirtation with chemistry in his teens, he committed to mathematics, which he studied at Moscow State University, gaining his Candidate of Sciences and Doctor of Sciences there. He has done a postdoc at the Institute for Advanced Study, held a visiting professorship at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics, and been Chief Scientific Researcher at the Steklov Mathematical Institute, among other things. In 2016 he was elected as a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Prof. Shkredov's main areas of expertise are additive combinatorics, number theory and combinatorial ergodic theory. 

Outside mathematics, he is an admirer of the poetry of Joseph Brodsky. 

Prof. Ilya Shkredov is our inaugural Arnold Fellow. He works on additive combinatorics, number theory and combinatorial ergodic theory.

Welcome, Ilya

We are pleased to welcome Dr Alexander Ochirov as the first Landau Research Fellow at the London Institute. Our five three-year Landau Research Fellowships were set up in response to the conflict in Ukraine. They are ring-fenced for outstanding Russian mathematicians and theoretical physicists.

Dr Ochirov was born in Ulan-Ude in Siberia and brought up in St Petersburg, where he also attended university. He obtained his PhD from Ecole Polytechnique, where he was awarded the Thesis Prize, and went on to work at Edinburgh University, then at ETH Zurich, where he held the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, and later at Oxford University. Ochirov’s main area of expertise is scattering amplitudes in quantum field theory, but his research topics range from the physics of strongly interacting elementary particles, or quantum chromodynamics, to gravitationally interacting celestial objects such as black holes. Most recently, his interest has focused on higher-spin composite particles. 

In the course of his travels, Ochirov gives talks to schools as part of the Lecturers without Borders project [lewibo.org](https://lewibo.org/).


Dr Alexander Ochirov is our inaugural Landau Research Fellow. He works on scattering amplitudes in quantum field theory and higher spins.

Welcome, Alexander

We are pleased to welcome Alana Ker Mercer as our new coordinator. She comes to the London Institute from the worlds of art and literature, having read English Literature at Durham University and studied for an MPhil in History of Art at Trinity College Dublin. There she wrote papers about the commercialisation of art, interwar artistic experimentation and female wood engravers employed by the Golden Cockerel Press.

Following her postgraduate studies, Mercer worked for Woolley and Wallis auctioneers, where she helped orchestrate sales of Chinese and Japanese art, including the scroll collection of the penultimate Viceroy of India, Earl Wavell. 

At the London Institute, she will orchestrate the efficient running of the organisation. This involves everything from organising events and coordinating diaries, to supporting scientists in their work, communicating results, and researching the history of the Royal Institution, where we’re based. 

In her spare time, Mercer is a keen sportswoman who has competed internationally at hockey. She enjoys open water swimming and trail running and is also a keen collector of rare books and prints.

We are pleased to welcome Alana Ker Mercer, who, as our new coordinator, will orchestrate the efficient running of the organisation.

Welcome, Alana

At our Autumn board meeting, Dr Thomas Fink and Sir John Beddington were joined by Sarah Myers Cornaby. Alana Ker Mercer took notes.

We focused on the Institute’s expansion. This summer, we began appointing ten physicists and mathematicians from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus through our new Arnold Fellowship and Landau Research Fellowship programmes. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, these three-year positions are the most substantial opportunity available for scientists affected by the war in Ukraine and will have a lasting impact on British science. 

To accommodate the new appointments, in August we doubled our space in the Royal Institution. By bringing more scientists into this historic building, we will breathe new life into its extraordinary tradition of doing science as well as talking about it. 

With the start of the academic year, we will host the weekly London Theory Institute lectures, which bring together young theorists from London’s universities. We will also launch our Friday night discourses, which will combine conviviality with intellectual discussion in the style of a classical symposium.

At our autumn meeting, we discussed the launch of two new Fellowship programmes, our new rooms at the Royal Institution and upcoming events.

Autumn board meeting

Last year we were thrilled to move into the world’s most prestigious scientific building. Among other accolades, the Royal Institution in Mayfair has overseen the discovery of ten new elements and the principles of electromagnetism. As for our suite of rooms on the second floor, they were once the private living quarters of Sir Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday, and the resident professors who succeeded them, from John Tyndall to Sir George Porter. 

Now we’re expanding. With ten new positions for researchers on the cards, we have taken over three more rooms at the Royal Institution, almost doubling our space.

Of our two new rooms on the second floor, one was once the drawing room of the Faradays, when they lived here in the mid-19th century. We know this because their friend Harriet Moore painted a watercolour of the scene (pictured). The room next to it, which we’ve also acquired, may have been the Faradays’ bedroom. Our third new room, on the third floor, was once a spare bedroom. This hosted the scientists visiting to give the Christmas Lectures, who have included Carl Sagan and David Attenborough.


We’ve doubled our space at the Royal Institution. Our new rooms include Faraday's drawing room and the guest room for Christmas Lecturers.

Space for science

The London Institute is in a long-term collaboration with the cell-coding company bit.bio as its theory partner. To harness the interest generated by our [international conference](https://lims.ac.uk/event/meeting-of-minds-on-the-mathematics-of-cell-programming/), the London Institute is creating a portal for the mathematics of cell programming. This is for researchers in physics, mathematics, computation and AI who want to work with bit.bio or ourselves.

The portal serves two purposes.

First, it convenes the community of researchers to develop insights and build collaborations in this rapidly changing field. Every two months we host an in-person meeting at the London Institute for presentations and discussions. We talk shop in the afternoon and continue the discussion over drinks on site.

Second, we provide a hub for coordinating the activity of theorists interested in working with bit.bio. This helps bit.bio as well as researchers by matchmaking theoretical approaches with problems and datasets that are aligned with bit.bio’s mission to create every human cell type.

Anyone interested in participating who was not at our March 2022 conference should contact Dr Forrest Sheldon, fs@lims.ac.uk.

The London Institute is creating a portal that connects bit.bio and theorists to accelerate research on the mathematics of cell programming.

Cell programming portal

Portal for the mathematics of cell programming

Unlike many research centres, we expect our scientists and staff to be present during business hours. We even spell it out: show up from 8am to 5pm, or 9am to 6pm, or 10am to 7pm. Here’s why this is important.

First, we’re in the business of making discoveries. New ideas are fragile, and they often come from unexpected interactions with others.

Second, showing up [makes organisations more intelligent](https://lims.ac.uk/perspectives/the-fundamental-reason-to-show-up-for-work/), because it lets workers switch between focus and interaction in an unplanned way. This helps us adapt quickly to new ideas or a changing environment.

Third is the propinquity effect, which is the innate tendency to be more committed to those you are physically close to. Being present automatically binds together and aligns members of a team.

Fourth, research has no hard deadlines, unlike the commercial world, where you may have to work late or on weekends. In lieu of these bursts, we ask for consistent commitment.

Some people will have different ideas about balancing work and life. Other organisations might better suit their needs. But we aim to be the Ferrari of research centres, so we seek extraordinary motivation.

One reason we outperform other research organisations is that everyone turns up for work, which makes us more creative, agile and aligned.

The power of presence

The power of being present

The London Institute was created as an alternative to the university model for doing research. But without a fair measure of the research performance of different organisations, it’s impossible to innovate models for organising research.

Before 2022, we used the [source normalized impact per publication](https://www.journalindicators.com/indicators), or SNIP, to [benchmark our research](https://lims.ac.uk/news/measure-what-matters/). This accounts for differences in citation practices between fields. But from 2022 onwards, we are using the author and source normalized impact per publication, or ASNIP. This is just like the SNIP except that it weights papers by the fraction of authors that work at the London Institute. For example, if a paper has two authors but only one is with us, then we count a half of that paper’s SNIP points. SNIP points for journals that we publish in are [here](https://lims.ac.uk/journals/).

Using ASNIP points ensures that the number of organisations that lay claim to a paper adds up to one. Ultimately, this will allow us to compare our research performance with other places.

Our goal is to double our ASNIP points every two years. In 2022, our target is 20 ASNIP points. In 2023, it’s 28, and in 2024 it’s 40.

To better benchmark research at the London Institute, we weight our published papers by the fraction of authors that are at the Institute.

Benchmarking research

Benchmarking research organisations

We make discoveries in physics and mathematics, and our website is how we deliver them. It’s built on the principles of simplicity, clarity and modularity.

Simplicity is in high demand, but hard to define. One way to achieve it is through constraints. All our copy is written in units of 140 characters: one unit for listing [papers](https://lims.ac.uk/papers/), [events](https://lims.ac.uk/events/) and [perspectives](https://lims.ac.uk/perspectives/); two units for titlegraphs at the top of each page; and eight for detailed summaries of news and events. Speed feels like simplicity, and our site is one of the fastest.

Our breakthroughs can seem complex, so we work hard to describe them clearly. We summarise every paper and event in a simple sentence, and explain each of our research [projects](https://lims.ac.uk/projects/) and [themes](https://lims.ac.uk/themes/) in plain English of uniform length.

Modularity allows us to create and adapt content quickly. Our entire site is organised around the concept of Lego-like building blocks of images and text. To combine these components on a recursively divisible grid, we even had to develop [new mathematics](https://lims.ac.uk/project/recursively-divisible-numbers/).

We believe that communicating our discoveries is as important as making them. Please vote for us at the [Webby Awards](https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2022/websites-and-mobile-sites/general-websites-and-mobile-sites/science).

Our website has been nominated for the best science website at the Webby Awards—hailed the “internet’s highest honor” by _The New York Times_.

Webby Award Nominee

The story behind our Webby-nominated website

What’s the oldest technology still in common use? Arguably, it’s writing on a blackboard. The process involves using one stone—white chalk—to make erasable marks on another—black slate. While the technology is probably prehistoric, the Persian scholar Al-Biruni describes Indian school children using blackboards as far back as the 11th century.

Whenever two or more theorists want to understand something new, their medium of choice is the blackboard. Why? One reason is that ordinary handwriting is too small for multiple people to see and interact with, so it helps to see the problem writ large. Another is that anything that’s written is meant to be erased, so blackboards encourage speculative thought. Another is their organic nature: stone on stone writing is inherently imperfect. After it’s erased, the board retains a trace of it of what was there before. “In many ways, mathematics is like craftsmanship. In some ways, it’s like artistry; in some ways, it’s like science. But there’s a real high craft side to giving a beautiful lecture on a blackboard,” says Prof. David Eisenbud, a mathematician at Berkeley.

In our updated landing page, we let our blackboards do the talking: each blackboard illustrates a key concept from one of our best papers.

Stone on stone

At its winter meeting, our Board is joined by our development director Sarah Myers Cornaby, finance director Ali Emamy and science writer Thomas Hodgkinson. Following the meeting, we move to the Royal Institution’s Lecture Theatre to hear Prof. Yang He talk about the [Theory of Everything](https://lims.ac.uk/event/the-theory-of-everything/). We then have dinner at Brooks’s nearby to continue the discussion, where we are joined by Prof. He, Myers Cornaby and others.

At this meeting, we review our research output projection, noting that we have exceeded this year’s target. Caltech has agreed to help us raise an endowment for the Tom Tombrello Junior Fellowship, and we discuss ways to use this joint campaign to bolster the relationship between the two organisations. Now that our application for government core funding is complete, we consider how to get it into the right hands. Finally, having got to know the Royal Institution and worked with them on joint lectures, we look at new ways to support their objectives.

At its winter meeting, our Board discusses our research output, endowment with Caltech, core funding and supporting the Royal Institution.

Winter board meeting

Dr Forrest Sheldon has been elected to a three-year Junior Fellowship at the London Institute. As the first scientist to hold this position, he sets a high bar for future candidates. Dr Sheldon studied physics at Duke University and UCSD before doing short postdocs at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the London Institute. With a track record of research in statistical physics, inference and neuromorphic computing, he had turned his sights to the theory of cell programming and the regulatory networks underlying it. He will play a leading role in our collaboration with the cell coding company Bit.Bio.

Junior Fellowships offer scientists the opportunity to pursue research full-time on a subject of their choosing in the early years after their PhD. The position is modelled on the Junior Research Fellowships of Oxford and Cambridge Colleges and the Harvard Society of Fellows. Our Junior Fellows set the highest standards of intellectual achievement and are ambassadors of the Institute, both here and at other research centres. The London Institute plans to eventually elect several Junior Fellows each year.

Dr Forrest Sheldon is the London Institute’s inaugural Junior Fellow, setting a high standard for our new programme of Junior Fellows.

Inaugural Junior Fellow

At the London Institute, we have one focus: making fundamental discoveries. The official record of our discoveries is the papers we publish, which allow others to build on and apply our work. Each paper is the result of many months of research, so we make a special effort to make them clear, beautiful and inspirational, and publish them in the most prestigious journals appropriate.

There is no perfect guide to the importance of papers. We use the best one we know of: [the source normalized impact per publication](https://www.journalindicators.com/indicators). This accounts for differences in citation practices between fields. It lets us compare mathematics journals, which tend to have fewer citations per paper, with physics journals, which tend to have more, with general science journals, which have more still.

Benchmarking the London Institute by the quality of our papers keeps us on mission, at a time when it’s easy to get distracted by virtue signalling and outreach. Our goal for the foreseeable future is to double our SNIP points every two years. In 2021, our target is 28 SNIP points. In 2022, it is 40 points, and in 2023 it’s 56.

Judge us by our papers.

We benchmark the London Institute by the quality of our published research papers, which we are increasing each year by a factor of √2.

Measure what matters

Our autumn meeting of our [Board of Trustees](https://lims.ac.uk/trustees/) takes place in our rooms at the Royal Institution. Our Board is joined by our science writer Thomas Hodgkinson, finance director Ali Emamy and development director Sarah Myers Cornaby.

At this meeting, our main focus is our draft proposal for government core funding, which will help us grow inside the Royal Institution. This is being led by Hodgkinson, with financial projections from Emamy. Our 2021 research output, measured by our paper [SNIP points](https://lims.ac.uk/journals/), is on track to increase by 41% over 2020. Prof. Yang-Hui He joined us as a Fellow in July. Upcoming events include an interview of Sir Roger Penrose, hosted jointly with the Royal Institution, and a Caltech and Princeton alumni meeting to mark Faraday’s birthday. The Science Philanthropy Alliance has accepted us as a UK partner. With Caltech’s help, we are planning a campaign to endow a Junior Fellowship in memory of Caltech’s Tom Tombrello, one of our founding Trustees.

At its autumn meeting, our Board discusses our application for core funding, a new Fellow, upcoming events and planning our first endowment.

Our summer meeting of our [Board of Trustees](https://lims.ac.uk/trustees/) takes place in our rooms at the Royal Institution. Our board is joined by our development director, Sarah Myers Cornaby, our finance director, Ali Emamy, and our lead solicitor, Glynne Stanfield from Eversheds. As well as setting us up, Glynne set up the Turing Institute and the Crick Institute.

At this meeting, Sarah describes our efforts to raise funds for Junior Fellows, the expansion of our American networks and the Science Philanthropy Alliance. Ali, who started this week, is our first full-time finance director, and this meeting gives the board a chance to meet him. Glynne helped Dr Thomas Fink prepare a white paper for the government on how to get core funding to independent research organisations, and we discuss our five-year plan and our prospects for obtaining core funding. We are on track to boost our research output for 2021 by a factor of √2 over 2020. We measure our research output in SNIP points, described in our [Journals](https://lims.ac.uk/journals/) page. To mark the launch of ARIA, we made a list of 23 mathematical challenges, which we will launch after this meeting.

At its summer meeting, our board meets our new finance director and discusses fundraising, core funding, research output and 23 challenges.

Summer board meeting

Whenever we want to make an announcement, offer a brief point of view, or just celebrate an achievement, we write a short news summary. Unlike Perspectives, which are full-length essays, pieces in News are 200 words—though they can be the first step to Perspectives or Principles.