Ms Robyn Arianrhod speaks on 'Mathematical love stories: Writing popular scientific biography and history' at Graduate House for our Twilight Lecture along with GU Tasting before and after the lecture.

Robyn Arianrhod is a writer and mathematician. Since her radical student days as an activist in the counter-culture, she has been interested in lending the ‘two cultures’ of humanities and science, and this is reflected in the blending of genres that is characteristic of her writing about science. Her books, Einstein’s Heroes: Imagining the world through the language of mathematics, and Seduced by Logic: Émilie du Châtelet, Mary Somerville and the Newtonian Revolution, have been published internationally, and have been shortlisted for several national literary awards.

Robyn received her PhD from Monash University for a thesis on Einstein’s theory of gravity. She taught for many years in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash, where she is currently an Adjunct Research Fellow working in the field of general relativity. She is an examiner in Monash College’s Foundation Year Program, and a member of its Board of Studies. She is also a technical reviewer for the American Mathematical Society. Over the years, she has taught mathematics in a variety of contexts, including a special program for disadvantaged students at Victoria University, and in programs for Aboriginal students and for women.

In 2005, she was awarded a six-month literary residency at the Australia Council’s Keesing Studio in the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and she has been a guest at writers’ festivals in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Byron Bay, Oxford and Rome. In 2013, she returned to the Cité des Arts, and was also a Visiting Scholar at the American University in Paris.

Dr Arianrhod’s Twilight Lecture will begin with her own rocky love affair with mathematical science – an affair that eventually led her to view mathematical physics as one of the most sublime and unifying examples of human creativity. She will talk about the lives and work of some of her scientific heroes and heroines, and about how she became inspired to write about their ‘mathematical love stories’.

Ticketing Details:
Resident Members FREE
Non-resident Members $20
Non-members and guests of Members $25
Concession $22.50

GU Tastings before and after the lecture are included in the price.

Booking Essentials:
Book by Monday, 17th March via our website, telephone (03 9347 3428), email at admingh@graduatehouse.com.au or in person at the venue, 220 Leicester Street, Carlton.

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