Visit by Leiden Students

On 24 January a group of 60 maths and science first-year undergraduates were entertained for an hour in the Nash lecture theatre by Marianne Hoogeveen,Sameer Murthy and Simon Salamon. The students belong to a study association or guild named De Leidsche Flesch (Leyden Jar) after the historical capacitor, and were participating in an educational and cultural trip to London. The guild was founded in 1923 by the theoretical physicist Paul Ehrenfest famous for his work in statistical mechanics, and whose own students included well-known mathematical names such as Casimir and Struik.

Marianne welcomed the students in their native language and spoke enthusiastically about her work and experience as a PhD student in the Department of Mathematics. Sameer (who himself has worked as a researcher in the Netherlands) spoke about Lorentz and space-time symmetries, and answered numerous questions about string theory. Simon gave a mini-lecture on space curves and vector fields to introduce differential geometry in a computer graphics context. The visit was organized solely by Leiden undergraduates, who rewarded the speakers with gifts at the end of the hour.