The third group of essays from the 2023 Teddy Rocks Maths Competition. The showcase will take place throughout June and July with the winners being announced at the end.

The competition is organised with St Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford and offers a cash prize plus publication on the university website for the winners. It will be running again in early 2024 so be sure to follow Tom (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) to make sure you don’t miss the announcement!

Thanus explores four different applications of mathematics to potentially life-saving situations.

This essay explains why mathematics should be considered a formal language.

Julia provides a complete definition of a surreal number.

Olivia models the signal of an electrocardiogram using a range of mathematical techniques.

Oskar investigates the many hidden patterns of Pascal’s Triangle.

This essay reads as a love letter to the subject of algebra.

Aren summarises the Collatz Conjecture and the potential avenues for a successful proof.

Rajat describes the many interesting properties of a Klein Bottle.

Amelie investigates how mathematical modelling can be used to help a company to maximise productivity.

Andrew looks back through history at how the numbers we use today came to be.

This essay contains the first 1000 digits of pi.

This essay provides a short summary of the Collatz Conjecture.