The Maths and Computing Magic Show
Thu 24 October 2013, Doors open at 6pm for a 6.30pm start. Ends 7.45pm.
FREE. Please note: booking for this event has now ended but limited tickets are available on the door.
The Screening Room, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA
See some amazing magic tricks and sneak behind the scenes to explore the maths and computing behind them.
Mathematics and computer science are behind today’s technological wizardry! Let Peter McOwan, scientist and magician, be your guide to the secret world where science meets conjuring.
Professor Peter McOwan QMUL, Vice-Principal (Public Engagement and Student Enterprise)
Peter McOwan is a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary. He was appointed to the role of Vice Principal for Public Engagement and Student Enterprise in January 2012.
Peter holds degrees from Edinburgh, Kings College London, UCL and Aberdeen. His interdisciplinary research interests are in visual perception, cognitive science and biologically inspired hardware and software. He has authored more than 120 papers in these areas. He is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces. He was coordinator of the successful Living with Robots and Interactive Companions (LIREC) project, one of the EU’s largest robotics projects, developing long-term synthetic companions, and is currently coordinator of an EU Science in Society grant Teaching Enquiry with Mysteries Incorporated (TEMI), using magic, myths and mysteries to promote enquiry-based education in Europe. He is an investigator on the EPSRC programme grant CHI+MED exploring design to reduce human errors in medical software and an EPSRC Partnership for Public Engagement Scheme Computer Science for Fun (CS4fn), an outreach project to enthuse school children about computer science research.
He was a founder member of the Computing at Schools network, was elected a National Teaching Fellow by the Higher Education Academy in 2008 and was awarded the 2011 IET Mountbatten Medal for his work in promoting computer science to diverse audiences. He also co-created with Queen Mary Innovation (QMI) the QApps venture, which develops commercial smartphone apps from staff and student research.
Main image credit: Istock Images
