#67 Chalmers short stories

PhD students at Chalmers learning how to make a science podcast.

Teachers and PhD students at Chalmers participating in a workshop on how to make a science podcast.

What´s the science behind self driving cars, hospital entry architecture and faster computers? In this episode we meet eight PhD-students presenting five minutes stories about their research projects at Chalmers University of Technology. We also talk to Dr. Raychelle Burks from St. Edwards University in Texas and Professor Lars Öhrström from Chalmers, about how they work to get science out to the society. Come along with RadioScience to a workshop on science communication, a warm and sunny day in June. We went to Gothenburg to give tips and tricks on recording and editing a podcast. In return we got eight really interesting short stories within the field of technology.

In addition, Raychelle Burks reads the post ”Because she didn’t die” from her blog thirty-seven and Lars Öhrström gives us a taste from his book ”The rhubarb connection – the everyday world of metal ions” – to be published in December.

This episode was produced in collaboration with teachers and students at the workshop on popular science communication at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.

#33 Soccermatics – the science of football

UPPSALA 2013-12-20 David Sumpter, profesor i matematik vid Uppsala universitet. Foto Fredrik Funck / DN / TT / Kod 3505 ** SVD OUT **

David Sumpter, professor in mathematics at Uppsala University.
Photo: Fredrik Funck

”What could be more fun than writing a book that combined the hobby that I loved with the work that I loved? So I decided to write the book that combined football and maths. And what was first written as a sort of joke, became the introduction to Soccermatics.”

David Sumpter has two passions: mathematics and football. When he decided to write a popular science book he discovered that football is a very mathematical sport, maybe the most mathematical of them all. From the triangles created by playing a one-two to the geometry of formations, from the dynamics of passing to the synchronisation of defences. The strategies adopted by managers both to beat the opposition and to get their teams to work together.

Listen to David Sumpter when he explains that Barcelona’s dynamic movements are similar to the movement of fish schools, Bayern Munich’s defending is similar to hunting by lionesses, Dutch total football became more than the sum of its parts in the same way as ant colonies perform better when the ants co-operate and that a manager’s tactics evolve in the same way as birds behaviour does.

In this episode David Sumpter tells us more about his work with the book and how we can use the generated knowledge to create a better and more exciting game.

This episode is also available in Swedish.

 

41j2SXHBItLDavid Sumpter is professor in mathematics at Uppsala University and does research on collective animal behaviour, social dynamical systems and outreach and analytics. Nowadays he is even a football journalist, contributing to the Magazine FourFourTwo, the Telegraph and The Economist. He is on Twitter och his book is available here in English.

 

 

 

 

David’s choice of music in this episode – listen on Spotify:

  • Three Lions – Baddiel. Skinner & Lightning Seeds
  • Belle & Sebastian – The Boy with the Arab Strap
  • Robyn – Hang with me
  • The Ark – Calleth You, Cometh I

This episode was produced with the support of Formas, the Swedish research council for sustainable development, and Naturvetarna, the Swedish Assocation of Professional Scientists.

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