Interesting topics to bring up on a Cambridge interview

As the title says, can anyone think of anything interesting and maths-related I could bring up in a maths interview at Cambs? Needs to be something tough, well above A-level... I'm kinda annoyed, I had a really good topic but it was in the middle of my work experience and by the time I had a chance to write it down it had slipped my mind - argg! :[

n.b. for all you worriers out there, no I haven't already been given a maths interview date at cambridge, and I don't mean to be presumptuous and assume I'll get one either - I just don't want to sit on my arse doing nothing =/

ta alls :smile:

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Reply 1

Juno

the colour of your socks. that's always a good one, especially if they're pink. black socks is a bad idea.

Reply 2

The West Wing

Differentiation! That's an interesting topic.

Reply 3

ARobinson6174

Juno

the colour of your socks. that's always a good one, especially if they're pink. black socks is a bad idea.

What other colours of socks would be advisable then?

Reply 4

Juno

BenSpurgen

What other colours of socks would be advisable then?

stripy. i have a picture of my new stripy socks, but it isnt on this computer.

*Ahem*

Perfect!

I have black and white stripey socks!

Wait, black, will that work against me?

And as far as the interview goes, if I get one, I think I will let them bring up the topics for discussion...

Reply 7

tinypony

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem.
Russel's Paradox.

Reply 8

ARobinson6174

Siddhartha

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem.
Russel's Paradox.

Lol, I mentioned Godel in my personal statement :smile:

Russel's Paradox is new to me, thanks! Just the kindof thing i'm looking for...

Things like differentiation are interesting, naturally, but I was looking to read up on some more obscure maths, something they wouldn't expect you to know about already - Russel's paradox is a great example (Cheers Siddhartha!), any more ideas anyone?

Reply 9

Simba

As I mentioned on NRICH, perhaps go beyond the realms of the A-level syllabus. Olympiad work would be fun to talk about if you got into the swing of that :smile:

Reply 10

ARobinson6174

My thoughts exactly [= anything you found particularly interesting?

game theory

I'm quite a fan of PNT myself.

Reply 13

ARobinson6174

More good stuff, keep it coming!

Reply 14

hermaphrodite

topology (although i personally don't find it interesting)

Reply 15

hermaphrodite

if you know who you are going to be interviewed by you could just look on his website and see what his interests are and quote them in the interview . . . a surefire winner :biggrin:

Reply 16

DFranklin

BenSpurgen

As the title says, can anyone think of anything interesting and maths-related I could bring up in a maths interview at Cambs?To be honest, I think it very unlikely you'll get a chance to "bring anything up" in a maths interview yourself. You might get 2 minutes of idle chatter, but then they'll start asking you to do maths problems.

hermaphrodite

If you know who you are going to be interviewed by you could just look on his website and see what his interests are and quote them in the interview . . . a surefire winner

Just in case anyone takes this seriously, I can't think of a worse plan myself. It will be blatantly obvious that you're bluffing / lying.

Reply 17

Simba

BenSpurgen

My thoughts exactly [= anything you found particularly interesting?

I'm personally interested in analysis as a non-olympiad area; if you were directing the question to what I like in olympiad work - well, I have a soft spot for algebra and number theory. Came across a really nice question the other day that I ended up solving using a Pell Equation, I'll see if I can dig it out for you :smile:

Reply 18

Gaz031

Analytic functions between Hausdorff, second countable smooth manifolds.