Her tiktok channel is one of my favorites. Her ability to tell a maths story in such a clever way has always given me pause to watch. Congratulations to such a gifted communicator!
Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach
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Re: Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach
#22Truly worth the prize!
Sometimes I feel that she is punished by the algorithm, but great content nevertheless
Re: Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach
#23History and the meaning behind the name, "Leelavati Prize" (https://www.mathunion.org/imu-awards/leelavati-prize);
1) Leelavati Award - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leelavati_Award
The Leelavati Award is an award for outstanding contribution to public outreach in mathematics. It is named after the 12th-century mathematical treatise "Lilavati" devoted to arithmetic, algebra, and the decimal system written by the Indian mathematician Bhāskara II, also known as Bhaskara Achārya. In the book the author posed, in verse form, a series of problems in (elementary) arithmetic to one Leelavati (perhaps his daughter) and followed them up with hints to solutions. This work appears to have been the main source of learning arithmetic and algebra in medieval India. The work was also translated into Persian and was influential in West Asia
2) Līlāvatī (the work itself) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C4%ABl%C4%81vat%C4%AB
Re: Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach
#24Made some of my favorite videos on YouTube. Wonderful!
Re: Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach
#25Well deserved. Her most memorable program for me was her 2018 program "Contagion" which modelled a virus outbreak among volunteers in the town of Haslemere, UK, using an app measuring Bluetooth proximity. Guess which town contained the UK's Covid patient zero a year later! Edit: found it here https://youtu.be/yISdMLbO0Wc?is=T-Tq9LwzLgbusuoe
And on her podcast with Vsauce she said the reason they chose that town was because their budget was so low and they could sleep over at a crew member's family there.
Re: Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach
#26Most well deserved. For the uninitiated, highly recommend her 2019 Christmas lectures which are excellent.
Re: Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach
#27What I love most is that Hannah Fry didn't get into the Cambridge undergraduate(?) math program (maths programme for you Brits) but became a math professor at Cambridge. Go Hannah!
Seems to happen to most top universities, or is there some context I'm missing?
Re: Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach
#28Well deserved. She is an excellent science communicator.
very much
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001qw8x/episodes/downloads Is really rather good, its a long form version of her corporate speeches
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07dx75g/episodes/downloads...
Curious cases with Adam rutherford was most excellent. They appeared to be great friends and spent a lot of the time taking the piss out of each other and doing great explanations. The ones with Dara are ok, but not as good.
Re: Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach
#29Well deserved. Her most memorable program for me was her 2018 program "Contagion" which modelled a virus outbreak among volunteers in the town of Haslemere, UK, using an app measuring Bluetooth proximity. Guess which town contained the UK's Covid patient zero a year later! Edit: found it here https://youtu.be/yISdMLbO0Wc?is=T-Tq9LwzLgbusuoe
> UK's Covid patient zero a year later!
I thought our first confirmed case was in York, very late in January 2020, who was staying at the Staycity hotel while visiting a family member attending the University here. That hotel is just around the corner from where we do martial arts of an evening, so we were acutely aware of that bit of news. Though IIRC they were from another country, so might not count depending on how "UK's Covid patient zero" is defined.
Re: Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach
#30I’m a big fan of her current podcast - The Rest Is Science. Informative and entertaining as well as being easy to listen to (I’m not a fan of many audio-only shows, so listenability is a big factor for me)
I really like her, but man I find Michael unbearable.
It also just feels too fake to me. I know they already knew the info they just had a strong reaction to, but they're reacting strongly on purpose for the sake of being engaging. I didn't find it annoying to start with, but it got more grating as I tried more episodes.
I recall in one episode she says "That's amazing" or something to that effect, to a fact regarding fluid dynamics. She has a PhD in fluid dynamics. She already knew whatever that fact was.