In 225BC Archimedes proved his greatest formula, that the area of a sphere is precisely that of its projection to a cylinder. Some 1800 years later, when mediaeval cartographer Mercator used this projection to draw maps of the world, this formula gained immediate and obvious applications. Archimedes did not have his "capability shaped" by anyone but himself. Of course, he was brutally eviscerated by an ignorant Roman soldier, but perhaps that is not so different from what is happening to UK mathematics funding at the moment. EPSRC should take a lesson from history: it's always a good time to invest in mathematics.

I'm a postdoctoral fellow at the mathematics department of ETH Zürich. My research interests centre on topological problems in symplectic geometry. This has the exciting benefit of being connected to many other areas of mathematics.

Here you can see me looking extremely cool near the Rheinfalls.

News

• This is a link which has been languishing on my links page, but I feel the time is ripe to draw attention to it. I urge you to have a look at thecostofknowledge and to go and read what Tim Gowers has to say about mathematics publishing reform. Whether or not you sign his boycott, this is an issue that should be discussed.
• Gluttons for punishment, Luis, Cedric and I have started a reading group on Seidel's paper Homological mirror symmetry for the quartic surface. You can follow our progress on our reading group blog...