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Diary

Marcus du Sautoy

Wednesday, 23rd January 2008

Marcus Du Sautoy discusses vampires, maths and football

I’m publishing a new book this month. Called Finding Moonshine, it combines the historical story of symmetry with a more personal narrative of what I do all day as a mathematician. It’s an exciting moment not least because, being my second book, it qualifies me to play for the England Writers Football Team. Last weekend was to have been my debut match, but owing to excessive rain the pitch was waterlogged and the match cancelled. However, Recreativo Hackney, my Sunday league team, isn’t afraid of getting muddy and Sunday was our derby match. Our home ground is the Hackney Marshes and our arch rivals are the Hackney Marshans. It’s the Tottenham v. Arsenal, the Everton v. Liverpool, the Celtic v. Rangers of our division. Not least because the Hackney Marshans are also the MK Dons of our league: their home ground isn’t even the Hackney Marshes any more but some god-forsaken ground in west London. The two-nil spanking we gave them on the Marshes is the least they deserved for defecting west.

A memorable weekend: one of my four-year-old twin daughters, Ina, cycled for the first time without stabilisers. The mathematics of why a bike stays upright is so complicated that it’s responsible for some weighty articles in the Transactions of the Royal Society. Ina plunged off into the distance, oblivious to the maths she’s just implemented. Her sister Magaly looks on rather jealously. She’s the thinking half of the duo in contrast to her reckless sister, and will require a little more persuasion before she’ll let me remove her stabilisers. I show her that even without a rider you can fire the bike off and as it tilts to one side it suddenly pulls itself upright, defying gravity. She’s still not convinced.

Marcus Du Sautoy Is Professor Of Mathematics At Wadham College, Oxford. His New Book, Finding Moonshine, Is Published By Fourth Estate.