Alain Goriely
@alaingoriely.bsky.social
Professor of Mathematical Modelling at Oxford University
and Gresham Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London
and Gresham Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London
The coolest math object is now in space.
Where on earth is the best laboratory to demonstrate the beauty of fluid dynamics?
Actually, it’s not on earth. Here is the story of the soft cell.
And a longer read: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/74308
Actually, it’s not on earth. Here is the story of the soft cell.
And a longer read: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/74308
November 19, 2025 at 7:51 PM
The coolest math object is now in space.
Reposted by Alain Goriely
Our inaugural Regius Professor of Mathematics, Andrew Wiles, retires in 2026 (not that mathematicians ever truly retire) and we are looking for his successor, starting in October of that year.
Full details: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/74751
Full details: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/74751
November 18, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Our inaugural Regius Professor of Mathematics, Andrew Wiles, retires in 2026 (not that mathematicians ever truly retire) and we are looking for his successor, starting in October of that year.
Full details: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/74751
Full details: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/74751
Reposted by Alain Goriely
Introducing Pluto, a small, hungry cat and, like all his fellow Aristocats, an optical superhero.
Everyone wants to be a cat.
Everyone wants to be a cat.
November 16, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Introducing Pluto, a small, hungry cat and, like all his fellow Aristocats, an optical superhero.
Everyone wants to be a cat.
Everyone wants to be a cat.
Reposted by Alain Goriely
You never know who'll you meet round here. People working in functional analysis or probability, mathematical physicists, applied mathematicians trying to model our environment, to name just a few. All of us hanging out in the same building. Come and join us: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/vacancies
November 13, 2025 at 10:21 AM
You never know who'll you meet round here. People working in functional analysis or probability, mathematical physicists, applied mathematicians trying to model our environment, to name just a few. All of us hanging out in the same building. Come and join us: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/vacancies
Reposted by Alain Goriely
How fast do plants actually grow? And which growth processes matter most for organ size?
We dived into 176 papers, extracted and re-analyzed the data so you don’t have to!
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
@newphyt.bsky.social @virajalim.bsky.social @elvisbranchini.bsky.social
We dived into 176 papers, extracted and re-analyzed the data so you don’t have to!
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
@newphyt.bsky.social @virajalim.bsky.social @elvisbranchini.bsky.social
A multiscale growth atlas of Arabidopsis: linking cell dynamics to organ development
Plant development depends on coordinated growth at cellular and organ scales, yet comparative analyses are hindered by inconsistent reporting of growth across studies. We conducted a meta-analysis o.....
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:00 AM
How fast do plants actually grow? And which growth processes matter most for organ size?
We dived into 176 papers, extracted and re-analyzed the data so you don’t have to!
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
@newphyt.bsky.social @virajalim.bsky.social @elvisbranchini.bsky.social
We dived into 176 papers, extracted and re-analyzed the data so you don’t have to!
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
@newphyt.bsky.social @virajalim.bsky.social @elvisbranchini.bsky.social
Reposted by Alain Goriely
🚨PREPRINT
Coarse-graining diffusions with discrete-state approximations is an easy and effective way to build stochastic models from observed trajectories, but how valid is this approximation?
arxiv.org/pdf/2511.05366
We focus on this problem, with an emphasis on the nonequilibrium steady-state.
Coarse-graining diffusions with discrete-state approximations is an easy and effective way to build stochastic models from observed trajectories, but how valid is this approximation?
arxiv.org/pdf/2511.05366
We focus on this problem, with an emphasis on the nonequilibrium steady-state.
November 10, 2025 at 9:39 AM
🚨PREPRINT
Coarse-graining diffusions with discrete-state approximations is an easy and effective way to build stochastic models from observed trajectories, but how valid is this approximation?
arxiv.org/pdf/2511.05366
We focus on this problem, with an emphasis on the nonequilibrium steady-state.
Coarse-graining diffusions with discrete-state approximations is an easy and effective way to build stochastic models from observed trajectories, but how valid is this approximation?
arxiv.org/pdf/2511.05366
We focus on this problem, with an emphasis on the nonequilibrium steady-state.
Reposted by Alain Goriely
These will go quickly - if you can join me on 3rd Dec in London, then grab a free ticket quickly.
🚀 In-person tickets now open: From Mars with Love - 50 years of exploring the Red Planet 🌌
🎟️ gres.hm/mars-love
Join Prof @chrislintott.bsky.social to uncover how #Mars evolved from barren desert to a world that may once have hosted life...
@oxfordphysics.bsky.social
#astronomy
🎟️ gres.hm/mars-love
Join Prof @chrislintott.bsky.social to uncover how #Mars evolved from barren desert to a world that may once have hosted life...
@oxfordphysics.bsky.social
#astronomy
From Mars with Love: Postcards from 50 Years of Exploring The Red Planet
During the fifty years since the launch of the Viking spacecraft to Mars, our view of the red planet has changed from hostile desert to a world which was once covered in water, and which may just poss...
gres.hm
November 6, 2025 at 1:18 PM
These will go quickly - if you can join me on 3rd Dec in London, then grab a free ticket quickly.
Reposted by Alain Goriely
A new paper with Bogdan Georgiev, Javier Gomez-Serrano, and Adam Zsolt Wagner: "Mathematical exploration and discovery at scale" arxiv.org/abs/2511.02864. Further discussion is at terrytao.wordpress.com/2025/11/05/m...
Mathematical exploration and discovery at scale
AlphaEvolve is a generic evolutionary coding agent that combines the generative capabilities of LLMs with automated evaluation in an iterative evolutionary framework that proposes, tests, and refines ...
arxiv.org
November 6, 2025 at 3:42 AM
A new paper with Bogdan Georgiev, Javier Gomez-Serrano, and Adam Zsolt Wagner: "Mathematical exploration and discovery at scale" arxiv.org/abs/2511.02864. Further discussion is at terrytao.wordpress.com/2025/11/05/m...
If it can cook potatoes, it can cook you!
Do you take your work home with you? It's kinda hard to avoid if you are a mathematician. The maths just follows you wherever you go.
Sam Howison prepares vegetables.
Sam Howison prepares vegetables.
November 5, 2025 at 5:38 PM
If it can cook potatoes, it can cook you!
Reposted by Alain Goriely
Do you take your work home with you? It's kinda hard to avoid if you are a mathematician. The maths just follows you wherever you go.
Sam Howison prepares vegetables.
Sam Howison prepares vegetables.
November 5, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Do you take your work home with you? It's kinda hard to avoid if you are a mathematician. The maths just follows you wherever you go.
Sam Howison prepares vegetables.
Sam Howison prepares vegetables.
Reposted by Alain Goriely
Now published in Phys. Rev. E
doi.org/10.1103/5l56...
doi.org/10.1103/5l56...
Modeling bulk mechanical effects in a planar cellular monolayer
We use a three-dimensional formulation of the cell vertex model to describe the mechanical properties of a confluent planar monolayer of prismatic cells. Treating cell height as a degree of freedom, w...
doi.org
November 3, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Now published in Phys. Rev. E
doi.org/10.1103/5l56...
doi.org/10.1103/5l56...
Reposted by Alain Goriely
Modelling bulk mechanical effects in a planar cellular monolayer
arxiv.org/abs/2505.23935
arxiv.org/abs/2505.23935
June 2, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Modelling bulk mechanical effects in a planar cellular monolayer
arxiv.org/abs/2505.23935
arxiv.org/abs/2505.23935
Reposted by Alain Goriely
New paper!💡 Amir Ohad developed this nifty setup to measure weak forces generated by freely moving plants, based on the deflection of a pendulum (straw from the cafeteria 😎), which does not require any tethering of the plant: academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-...
Plant-obstacle interactions here we come!
Plant-obstacle interactions here we come!
November 2, 2025 at 7:34 AM
New paper!💡 Amir Ohad developed this nifty setup to measure weak forces generated by freely moving plants, based on the deflection of a pendulum (straw from the cafeteria 😎), which does not require any tethering of the plant: academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-...
Plant-obstacle interactions here we come!
Plant-obstacle interactions here we come!
Reposted by Alain Goriely
Independent researcher fellowships (non-tenure track) at OIST, with a focus on broadly defined theory www.oist.jp/research/bur...
Buribushi Fellowship
www.oist.jp
October 30, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Independent researcher fellowships (non-tenure track) at OIST, with a focus on broadly defined theory www.oist.jp/research/bur...
Reposted by Alain Goriely
🧪⚛️
Here is a terrific research opportunity at OIST. Basically a Principle-Investigator position that prepares advanced postdocs for tenure-track faculty positions in Japan or abroad.
Deadline is 30 November 2026.
I know OIST well - an excellent research environment.
www.oist.jp/research/bur...
Here is a terrific research opportunity at OIST. Basically a Principle-Investigator position that prepares advanced postdocs for tenure-track faculty positions in Japan or abroad.
Deadline is 30 November 2026.
I know OIST well - an excellent research environment.
www.oist.jp/research/bur...
Buribushi Fellowship
www.oist.jp
October 29, 2025 at 5:46 PM
🧪⚛️
Here is a terrific research opportunity at OIST. Basically a Principle-Investigator position that prepares advanced postdocs for tenure-track faculty positions in Japan or abroad.
Deadline is 30 November 2026.
I know OIST well - an excellent research environment.
www.oist.jp/research/bur...
Here is a terrific research opportunity at OIST. Basically a Principle-Investigator position that prepares advanced postdocs for tenure-track faculty positions in Japan or abroad.
Deadline is 30 November 2026.
I know OIST well - an excellent research environment.
www.oist.jp/research/bur...
Reposted by Alain Goriely
New paper with @math-martens.bsky.social on "Multiple timescale dynamics of network adaptation with constraints" now available Open Access in Chaos: doi.org/10.1063/5.02...
Multiple timescale dynamics of network adaptation with constraints
Adaptive network dynamical systems describe the co-evolution of dynamical quantities on the nodes and the dynamics of the network connections themselves. For de
doi.org
October 28, 2025 at 4:01 PM
New paper with @math-martens.bsky.social on "Multiple timescale dynamics of network adaptation with constraints" now available Open Access in Chaos: doi.org/10.1063/5.02...
Reposted by Alain Goriely
Before then, I'm chairing two excellent @greshamcollege.bsky.social lectures this week - 'Music of Animals' with the awesome Milky Mermikides (www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/mus...) and then @helenczerski.bsky.social on Oceans (www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/liq...). Both free to attend or watch online.
Music of Animals
**We are currently undertaking some website upgrade work. If you have any difficulty watching the live stream above please follow along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Qzdum7CQ8**
www.gresham.ac.uk
October 27, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Before then, I'm chairing two excellent @greshamcollege.bsky.social lectures this week - 'Music of Animals' with the awesome Milky Mermikides (www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/mus...) and then @helenczerski.bsky.social on Oceans (www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/liq...). Both free to attend or watch online.
Reposted by Alain Goriely
Our review paper on nonequilibrium physics in the brain is now out in Physics Reports!
doi.org/10.1016/j.ph...
doi.org/10.1016/j.ph...
October 24, 2025 at 8:34 AM
Our review paper on nonequilibrium physics in the brain is now out in Physics Reports!
doi.org/10.1016/j.ph...
doi.org/10.1016/j.ph...
Reposted by Alain Goriely
The freedom to go for it for three years?
Our Hooke and Titchmarsh Fellowships in pure and applied mathematics give you the space to follow a research path of your choice, a path that has proved instrumental in the careers of many previous fellows.
Details: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/vacancies
Our Hooke and Titchmarsh Fellowships in pure and applied mathematics give you the space to follow a research path of your choice, a path that has proved instrumental in the careers of many previous fellows.
Details: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/vacancies
October 24, 2025 at 11:14 AM
The freedom to go for it for three years?
Our Hooke and Titchmarsh Fellowships in pure and applied mathematics give you the space to follow a research path of your choice, a path that has proved instrumental in the careers of many previous fellows.
Details: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/vacancies
Our Hooke and Titchmarsh Fellowships in pure and applied mathematics give you the space to follow a research path of your choice, a path that has proved instrumental in the careers of many previous fellows.
Details: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/vacancies
How does the 🧠 process information?
In this review we show how to use the tools of non-equilibrium thermodynamics to understand brain dynamics in discrete and continuous state spaces
Great work led by Ramon as part of his PhD
kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...
In this review we show how to use the tools of non-equilibrium thermodynamics to understand brain dynamics in discrete and continuous state spaces
Great work led by Ramon as part of his PhD
kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...
ScienceDirect.com | Science, health and medical journals, full text articles and books.
kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me
October 24, 2025 at 4:51 AM
How does the 🧠 process information?
In this review we show how to use the tools of non-equilibrium thermodynamics to understand brain dynamics in discrete and continuous state spaces
Great work led by Ramon as part of his PhD
kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...
In this review we show how to use the tools of non-equilibrium thermodynamics to understand brain dynamics in discrete and continuous state spaces
Great work led by Ramon as part of his PhD
kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...
We just advertised the Hooke Fellowships for exceptional researchers (typically after their first post-doc).
You are completely free to set up your own research agenda for three years.
RT please
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
You are completely free to set up your own research agenda for three years.
RT please
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
my.corehr.com
October 21, 2025 at 5:38 PM
We just advertised the Hooke Fellowships for exceptional researchers (typically after their first post-doc).
You are completely free to set up your own research agenda for three years.
RT please
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
You are completely free to set up your own research agenda for three years.
RT please
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
The illusion of illusions
One of the oldest myths in human history is that the Parthenon was cleverly built with curves so that it looks straight, to correct some visual illusions
In this paper I demonstrate that there are NO optical corrections in the Parthenon
arxiv.org/abs/2510.16831. [1/n]
One of the oldest myths in human history is that the Parthenon was cleverly built with curves so that it looks straight, to correct some visual illusions
In this paper I demonstrate that there are NO optical corrections in the Parthenon
arxiv.org/abs/2510.16831. [1/n]
The illusion of illusions: There are no optical corrections in the Parthenon
One of the oldest and most enduring myths in human history is the belief that the Parthenon was cleverly designed with various curved structures and sizes in order to correct optical illusions, and th...
arxiv.org
October 21, 2025 at 6:40 AM
The illusion of illusions
One of the oldest myths in human history is that the Parthenon was cleverly built with curves so that it looks straight, to correct some visual illusions
In this paper I demonstrate that there are NO optical corrections in the Parthenon
arxiv.org/abs/2510.16831. [1/n]
One of the oldest myths in human history is that the Parthenon was cleverly built with curves so that it looks straight, to correct some visual illusions
In this paper I demonstrate that there are NO optical corrections in the Parthenon
arxiv.org/abs/2510.16831. [1/n]
👏👏
WE'VE ONLY GONE AND DONE IT!!!
(Apart from the two pieces that have sadly gone missing in the last 2.5 years 😅🥲)
(Apart from the two pieces that have sadly gone missing in the last 2.5 years 😅🥲)
October 21, 2025 at 4:35 AM
👏👏
James,
ManyThanks for cleaning the board after your lecture (just before mine)
ManyThanks for cleaning the board after your lecture (just before mine)
And so it begins.
9 am, first day of term, our first-year undergraduates gather for the first lecture of their Oxford mathematical lives. James Munro is our guy rolling the boards.
9 am, first day of term, our first-year undergraduates gather for the first lecture of their Oxford mathematical lives. James Munro is our guy rolling the boards.
October 15, 2025 at 6:08 PM
James,
ManyThanks for cleaning the board after your lecture (just before mine)
ManyThanks for cleaning the board after your lecture (just before mine)
DO LOOK UP!
Fascinating research on collective motion by Christiana, a new Hooke Fellow in Oxford.
Fascinating research on collective motion by Christiana, a new Hooke Fellow in Oxford.
Next time someone calls you a birdbrain you should perhaps take it as a compliment.
Christiana Mavroyiakoumou is flying high.
Christiana Mavroyiakoumou is flying high.
October 13, 2025 at 6:44 AM
DO LOOK UP!
Fascinating research on collective motion by Christiana, a new Hooke Fellow in Oxford.
Fascinating research on collective motion by Christiana, a new Hooke Fellow in Oxford.