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Ian Stewart - Five Way Interview

Ian Stewart is emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, England. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and served on its Council from 2014 to 2017. He has an MA from the University of Cambridge, a PhD from Warwick, and six honorary degrees. His awards include the Michael Faraday Medal of the Royal Society, the Gold Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications, the Lewis Thomas Prize for Science Writing from Rockefeller University, and the Chancellor’s Medal from the University of Warwick. He delivered the 1997 Christmas Lecture series on BBC television. He has written more than 140 books, including many popular books on mathematics, several science fiction novels, and the Science of Discworld series with Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett. His latest book is Reaching for the Extreme.

Why maths?

Without maths the human race would still be living in caves. Most people don't understand how vital it is to everyday life, for several reasons. They think it's limited to what they studied at school under that name — it's not — and its uses are hidden from view inside tech gadgets. In 2024, workers in mathematical science occupations contributed £489 billion to the UK economy (19% of total gross value added) and were 27% more productive economically than other occupations. Go figure.

Why this book?

It started out as a book about the shapes of bubbles — minimal surfaces in the jargon — and broadened out into a discussion of a major theme in maths: seeking extremes. Largest volumes, shortest trips for delivery vehicles and SatNav, best strategies in games, minimal energy shapes for protein molecules. Mathematicians always want to improve their ideas, get better results. A secondary theme is how mathematicians think, and the search for extremes illustrates that attitude very well.

Infinity is a concept that seems to intrigue people from school age upwards: what do you think the appeal is of a topic that (outside, perhaps, of the limit aspect in calculus) has very little connection to everyday life?

I'd start by disputing that it has very little connection to everyday life! But I admit, that's what it looks like, for the same reasons people don't see all the maths that their lives are depending on. Most area of maths use the infinite in some form or another, if only because the counting numbers 1,2,3,... go on, in principle, forever. But the fascination with the infinite isn't about practicalities. It's such a mind-blowing concept. Fraught with logical pitfalls and paradoxes, of course, which add to the allure. 

What’s next?

For maths? One major trend is the rapidly growing interaction with computers, in particular AI, which is based on basic mathematical trickery computed at high speed and in huge amounts. Computers provide mathematicians with new tools; mathematicians provide new ideas for how to use computers. Not all of the results are positive, as we're now worrying about, but many are. Another is the application of maths to biology. Beyond that, maths is now showing up almost everywhere. In politics (detecting gerrymandering, analysing voting methods); in medicine (drug design, protein structure, scanners); in transportation (efficient aircraft); and so on. 

For me? Six science fiction novels, new editions of four popular science books, and my research (see next question). Plus family life, now into four generations. 

What’s exciting you at the moment?

I'm still active at age 80, and my current research area is about what happens when individual 'dynamical systems' are hooked together into a network. A dynamical system is something that evolves over time according to fixed rules. Biology, in particular, is littered with networks of this kind:  networks of nerve cells in the brain and the body; networks of genes switching each other on and off to control how an embryo grows; networks of animals and planets forming an ecosystem. Many other areas too — the Internet, electrical power grids, road and rail. Marty Golubitsky and I recently produced an 850-page book on all this, and another four-author book focused on biology is in the press. I mostly wander around in the no-man's-land between theory and applications. 

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