The fourth 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!

Ana explores a solution to the infamous Kakeya Problem which asks what is the smallest shape that will allow a needle to be rotated 180 degrees?

Emma delves into chaos theory and how the work of Lorenz shaped modern-day weather forecasting.

Dylan calculates the probability of winning a major tennis tournament using the Binomial Distribution.

Merle explains how matrices are used to help identify human faces when unlocking a phone.

This essay explains how one high school student uses maths in a wide range of situations across their daily life.

This essay looks at some of the key names in the history of Algebra.

This essay provides a succinct introduction to what we do – and don’t – know about the distribution of the prime numbers.

This essay presents the key features of a fractal structure, and explains how they are used in medicine.

This essay outlines the main steps in a machine learning algorithm.

This essay explores some of the uses of differentiation throughout history.

This essay investigates the hidden beauty created by symmetry and the golden ratio.

This essay looks at the mathematical calculations involved in running a half-marathon.