alt.hn

7/25/2026 at 1:44:12 AM

Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach

 https://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/features/professor-hannah-fry-wins-leelavati-prize

by agnishom

7/25/2026 at 6:29:52 AM

Well 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

by kitd

7/25/2026 at 8:02:11 AM

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.

by skerit

7/25/2026 at 9:26:22 AM

Which episode? I subscribe but I don't have the attention surplus to listen to them all.

by willis936

7/25/2026 at 11:05:05 AM

https://youtu.be/ClqvH-uG2Mw

Hannah Predicted a Pandemic | The Rest Is Science

by inamorty

7/25/2026 at 11:31:17 AM

So did Bill Gates in his Ted talk six years before and the Event 201 table top exercise six months before lockdown.

The second one also managed to predict the use of trusted media and keeping intercontinental flights going throughout the pandemic.

by nephihaha

7/25/2026 at 2:16:44 PM

Wait until you watch the 2011 movie Contagion.

by willis936

7/25/2026 at 8:24:02 AM

> 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.

by dspillett

7/25/2026 at 8:55:31 AM

Yeah, you're probably right. Looking back at news reports, it looks like the Haslemere case may have been the first person infected within the UK, ie they hadn't been abroad.

by kitd

7/25/2026 at 6:51:43 AM

And didn't the NHS app use Bluetooth proximity to alert you if you'd been in contact with a COVID case early in the pandemic? A nice case of life imitating art.

by pmg101

7/25/2026 at 7:09:22 AM

Yeah, just watching the first few minutes of the program, it's astonishing how prophetic it was.

by kitd

7/25/2026 at 10:39:59 AM

It's not prophetic. Prophetic means it predicts the future, this is epidimlogical science being applied as intended. It didn't predict the future it designed it because we applied it.

Contagion used GPS logging to predict who was where an applied a random transmission risk based on that.

The actual origin of the Bluetooth proximity and duration tracking was from FluPhone back in 2010 or so[0]

Human contact networks, and epidemiology is a long standing science COVID just made that apparent for the lay public.

Quarantines have existed for centuries, contact tracing is Victorian (smallpox mostly),social distancing, It was all application of research that largely already existed.

[0] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netos/projects/archive...

by rustyhancock

7/25/2026 at 12:17:00 PM

Since you seems well versed in the matter...Did we learn something new from the whole covid experience?

by thegabriele

7/25/2026 at 4:15:43 PM

> Did we learn something new from the whole covid experience?

The hardest part of a 5 day snap lockdown are the first 10 weeks.

by lostlogin

7/25/2026 at 8:04:34 PM

Yes: * That you sell a six month lockdown by saying it will take two or three weeks. You can do this several times.

* That censorship is essential.

* That any public disagreement will be responded to with terms of personal abuse.

* That you can use it to introduce/try out all kinds of other long-desired schemes like digital ID (so called passports) or increasing working from home.

by nephihaha

7/26/2026 at 6:45:26 AM

And that it will clearly show, without any doubt, the people who will cling to fringe beliefs to justify their lack of empathy.

by spiderfarmer

7/26/2026 at 9:46:43 AM

Many of the decisions made were not scientific, nor were they compassionate. Despite claims to the contrary. Permitting intercontinental flights and Amazon delivery cannot be construed as either. In fact flights would be one of the biggest vectors.

History shows that the biggest danger from humans is when they follow leaders' statements without question. They are capable of anything when their personal responsibility is outsourced. Obedience is not always a virtue.

Dissidence =/= fringe beliefs

I certainly see the near abandonment of vulnerable groups such as addicts and the elderly as unempathetic. I knew some people who died that way, including one who drank himself to death due to complete lack of offline support.

by nephihaha

7/26/2026 at 12:29:18 AM

...so nothing about epidemiology

by thegabriele

7/25/2026 at 12:53:43 PM

It's been fun to see her steady rise since she first appeared on Numberphile more than ten years ago. She's a really excellent communicator of math and science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rudzYPHuewc

by ryangittins

7/25/2026 at 1:24:03 PM

Yeah, her enthusiasm is contagious.

by matsemann

7/25/2026 at 8:46:04 AM

Congrats Hannah. I'll pile on with my own anecdote; I've run an internal conference at work for several years and we always book an external speaker.

She remains my (close) second favourite[1], with a choose your own adventure talk about algorithms. It was genuinely great, and warm, and thoughtful (a lot of it was about the risks of algorithms, which is very relevant for us).

This was... 2021 so mid COVID (yep it was remote) and so just before she became really big. We've worked with a lot of external speakers since, many of them very good or very slick, but she was the only one that was clearly both brilliant at her topic(s) and also an exceptional communicator.

[1] For the record my favourite is Clifford Agius who is some guy I saw at a local conference who in his spare time from being a commercial pilot builds fully robotic arms for kids - he even lets them give the finger. Great guy and refused to charge us more than a few hundred quid.

by ErrantX

7/25/2026 at 4:51:48 AM

What 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!

by vgivanovic

7/25/2026 at 3:56:52 PM

She went to UCL which is also a tier one university, though.

by adw

7/25/2026 at 8:17:05 AM

Seems to happen to most top universities, or is there some context I'm missing?

by mi_lk

7/25/2026 at 11:23:30 AM

Oxford & Cambridge are very selective and entry is very competitive. Unusually for UK universities they hold a separate entrance exam for all courses. (Information about the extra admissions tests done by some universities and some courses: https://www.ucas.com/applying/before-you-apply/what-and-wher....)

Fun fact: When I applied to Cambridge I was interviewed by Mary Beard.

by rwmj

7/25/2026 at 11:32:08 AM

Entry is to Oxford and Cambridge is by interview. A lot hinges on that.

by nephihaha

7/25/2026 at 5:18:52 PM

In maths, if you do well enough in the exam, you have to really mess up the interview to not get in though I would say. If you're borderline, the interview is important though - the interviews will usually be 95% maths questions so it's more like doing an oral exam where you have to explain your thinking process and answers.

by jvvw

7/25/2026 at 8:01:47 PM

I'm sure it probably depends on the discipline (and indeed the college, since some are harder to get into than others). I can see how this would be important in mathematics where it is hard to avoid rules and structure. In other areas, the decisions will be much more subjective.

by nephihaha

7/25/2026 at 12:19:57 PM

Any elite selection process has high risk for not selecting the best people.

Either due to corruption or, even more likely, institutional biases.

Malcolm Gladwell has a few episodes of revisionist history that looks at some US universities who fall into this trap.

Even with all that said; the chances of a selection process for 17/18 year olds being able to correctly select the best future adults in their field is very low.

Another good example; the number of young geniuses or prodigies (whether maths, chess, acting etc.) who don't make anything of themselves.

by ErrantX

7/25/2026 at 5:14:27 PM

Having interviewed maths applicants for Oxford, I don't think it's just corruption or biases - there are just more really bright students that you have places for and have to reject some people! We all tried really hard not be biased but I don't think there is any way to guarantee that you aren't somehow, however hard you try.

It's very hard to predict from a half hour interview precisely who will do well in future, and in fact some people might do better having gone to other universities. Oxford and Cambridge aren't the best choice for everybody - I'm sure being a bigger fish in a smaller pond suits some people better.

by jvvw

7/25/2026 at 10:28:29 PM

No judgement here. And you are right btw; we are biased constantly in everything we do, and it's a better person than you our me that can truly dodge it!

I read a study a while ago (sorry Google didn't find it again) that said a lot of exceptionally gifted people just don't apply to elite universities. Instead, the main characteristic of applicants tends to be that they are extremely driven.

Drive tends to not correlate well to long term success without talent as a companion. Therefore a lot of people at Cambridge (which I think was the example) tend to do no better than the average in later life (notably wasn't true for PPE grads obviously)

by ErrantX

7/25/2026 at 11:22:57 PM

As someone rejected in my maths application for Oxford - I echo this - twas a fair cop.

by tmgldn

7/25/2026 at 6:21:42 PM

"Malcolm Gladwell has a few episodes of revisionist history"

that's a complete sentence already

by jdub

7/25/2026 at 2:17:55 PM

Did Malcolm Gladwell ever address the lack of scientific rigor in his work, or does he still roll with whatever narrative he thinks will entertain and sell?

by lotsofpulp

7/25/2026 at 8:51:51 AM

I know another professor where this is also the case!

by mttch

7/25/2026 at 12:33:24 PM

She is great at popularity regarding mathematics, but her achievements do not seem to be primarily within hardcore mathematical research, more within popularity and communication.

> She is the first Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge,

I am not sure that she is a "math professor", but that she is a "professor of the public understanding of mathematics". The latter seems softer.

by hunnovi

7/25/2026 at 1:40:52 PM

She was a professor in the mathematics of cities (applied spatial mathematics) before that — in her early thirties.

She is an expert in applied mathematics (president of the applicable UK institute, actually) and this is absolutely of a piece with that; it's not some wishy-washy thing that she does.

Public understanding of science has proved to be a valuable field, and I think this will be important. Her Oxford opposite number, arguably, is Marcus du Sautoy, who has the Public Understanding of Science professorship that was originally created for Dawkins.

by dofm

7/25/2026 at 2:57:56 PM

> She was a professor in the mathematics of cities (applied spatial mathematics) before that — in her early thirties.

But, that was not at Cambridge, which is what the original post by vgivanovic claimed, right? It was at University College London.

> Public understanding of science has proved to be a valuable field,

I never contested that, assuming that it is done responsibly and well. But that field, as well as a large proportion of her activities and work, as well as the title "Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics", seem softer and less hardcore than many other titles for professors regarding mathematics.

A field can be both soft and valuable, assuming the field is handled responsibly and well.

> president of the applicable UK institute

A president is not primarily a researcher, right? More about external relations, strategy, management, etc., as far as I know. Mentioning her being a president weakens your argument, and strengthens my argument, as far as I can tell. There are other former presidents of that institute that likewise have had a more educational focus instead of hardcore research focus, like Celia Hoyles as far as I can tell.

> She is an expert in applied mathematics

She does have a PhD, but apart from that, her research work has been more focused on softer topics as far as I can tell. Do you know of any work after her PhD that was more hardcore research? The publications I found were more soft, like "The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus (2015)", a few years after completing her PhD.

Do you know if she has been employed in the private sector regarding what one could perceive as more hardcore research or engineering? She seems to be very hardworking and active, and have written a lot of books and worked with a lot of movies and other media, apart from being a president of an institute and being a professor, so it would be impressive if she also found both time and energy for hardcore research. I don't know if other professors would be able to take on that many challenges at once. She cannot be described as lazy by any means.

by hunnovi

7/25/2026 at 6:16:10 PM

I have no idea why you have this weird axe to grind. Yes she has done research

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01303

https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1473-3099(20)30457-6/full...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03164-7

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.16.20023754v...

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-...

Etc etc. That’s papers in Nature, The Lancet, The European Journal of Applied Mathematics etc. If you actually searched you would have found tons and tons of papers and citations. She clearly does “hardcore” research by any reasonable definition as you would expect given she has been for some time a professor at UCL which is a top-tier university.

by seanhunter

7/25/2026 at 7:03:37 PM

Between 2017 and 2021 she also had two children, cervical cancer, a radical hysterectomy, lymphoedema and reconstructive surgery for that.

She is a properly impressive person who warrants no shade, but it never surprises me to see it.

by dofm

7/25/2026 at 9:03:26 PM

I guess she's no Richard Feynman, just like literally everyone else on the planet...

by globular-toast

7/25/2026 at 7:38:32 PM

There are examples like Stephen Hawking, and he did truly impressive work in hardcore science as far as I know, despite the challenges and obstacles that he had in life. Hannah Fry has done a lot of soft work, lots of books and other media, lots of activity, a very hardworking person, and very skilled at popularity work. But that does not change my impression that her focus is not really on hardcore science.

by hunnovi

7/25/2026 at 7:29:19 PM

The medrxix example is a preprint, not peer-reviewed. Why did you not point that out? And her name appears second-to-last in the authors' list.

The Lancet example is some BBC stuff, and has her name appear down near the end of the authors' list. And the contributors' section does not seem to list her as a primary author, she did not design the analysis, nor develop the model.

The Nature example indicates in the Author Contributions section that she only did some additional contributions, nothing core. Her name is not near the start of the long list of authors.

That leaves the 2 papers from 2013 and 2016, closer to the beginning of her career. Her name does not appear first in either, but she was presumably a major author in both.

The spatio-temporal aspects of some of the papers seem neat.

There is an annoyingly large amount of statistics involved, and statistics is again one of those fields that do not always have the best of reputations ("lies, damned lies, and statistics"). In part because statistical models, results, etc. can be difficult to verify the correctness of. Unlike for instance some kinds of experimental physics, where if something is wrong, the experiment can easily fail in many cases. Or in multiple kinds of engineering, where if something is wrong, there can be very practical consequences, and those consequences are often encountered sooner rather than later. In my experience, physicists are often better than mathematicians at mathematics, in part because phycisists cannot as often bullshit their way through things, which filters people and also lets phycisists test, train and improve themselves. Ironically, proper statistics is in some ways harder because of this than some other disciplines, because statistics requires greater honesty, discipline and competence due to statistics often being difficult to verify correctness of.

Also consider stuff like the reproducibility crisis and various scandals:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48568058

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42284173

Nothing among the papers you listed that really seems to push the boundaries of science. A lot of models, statistics, data gathering and such.

Do you have more papers? With this admittedly tiny selection, excluding the preprint stuff, she seems to have done more research work earlier in her career, and none of the examples list her as the first author.

I actually have a worse impression of her now that I have seen the papers you listed. Ignoring the preprint paper you listed.

by hunnovi

7/25/2026 at 8:27:42 PM

> I actually have a worse impression of her now

You’re not exactly making the best impression here. This is such a bizarre thread. You have nit-picked someone’s choice of words into an extraordinary series of implicit slights against someone who has won a prize for the very thing at which she excels, and you really are inviting a lot of theories as to why; very few of them favourable.

by dofm

7/25/2026 at 9:03:19 PM

I believe that most or all of your comment is completely wrong, sorry.

Either way, do you really believe that her achievements are primarily within hardcore mathematical research, and not more within popularity and communication? As I was skeptical about in the first post? There are also other arguments that I made that have not been addressed as far as I can tell.

by hunnovi

7/26/2026 at 11:54:01 AM

What a small-minded, mean-spirited, charlatan and poser you are!

Having gone through all your comments in this thread, it is clear that you are just an "anonymous coward" and a troll, deriding and denigrating other folks commendable life work for no reason at all.

Instead of hiding behind anonymity, why don't you share your qualifications and competencies with us so that we can judge for ourselves on what basis you made the above statements and what they are worth? Do you have the spine to stand behind your criticisms in real life?

Your criticisms above are just general "shade-throwing and innuendos" with nothing specific to them. Preprints have far greater readership (and hence are a form of informal peer review) than official journals due to lack of paywall restrictions. The position of an author's name in a paper does not always reflect the magnitude of their contribution to it. Often it is just alphabetical, seniority-based (i.e. age), in-group vs. out-group or simply first-come first-noted. Your comments about statistics are laughable. Do you even know what you are talking about? Probability/Statistics are fundamental to Hannah's work. Contrary to what you may think many do check/verify the data which they study in a paper (it is trivial with Computers/AI nowadays). Pointing to reproducibility crisis/scandals simply implies that you have nothing worthwhile to contribute but are simply "throwing shade" for the sake of it (which any fool can do).

Hannah Fry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Fry) has a PhD from UCL for research on fluid dynamics and the Navier–Stokes equations. Do you know how hardcore a domain that is in Applied Mathematics/Physics? She then became lecturer/professor at "UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCL_Centre_for_Advanced_Spatia... Do you have any idea of what they do? She then was made a "Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering" and then became President of the "Institute of Mathematics and its Applications". All before finally joining Cambridge as the university's first "Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics". Google Scholar will show one the list of papers authored/co-authored by her if anybody wants to check.

By any measure the above is an outstanding record in mathematics scholarship. Nobody is claiming that she is the second coming of Euler/Gauss but in her own way she has achieved and done much in and for mathematics.

She chose to work on the popularization of mathematics and has done an excellent job of it in recognition of which the "International Mathematical Union" awarded the "Leelavati Prize" to her for outstanding contributions for increasing public awareness of mathematics as an intellectual discipline and the crucial role it plays in diverse human endeavors...[and]...outstanding public outreach work for mathematics. (https://www.mathunion.org/imu-awards/leelavati-prize)

Given how Modern Science and Mathematics feels like sheer "magic" to the common man (because they are not well explained and hence hard to understand) we need more people like Hannah who work on explaining/popularizing them; the main reason that Cambridge/Oxford/Other universities are establishing chairs for these disciplines. I would argue that this is the need of the hour for all scientific disciplines now.

PS: The Leelavati Prize 2026: A conversation with Hannah Fry - https://plus.maths.org/leelavati-prize-2026-conversation-wit...

by rramadass

7/25/2026 at 1:39:38 PM

Signed up just to post that? You’ll fit in well here.

by tclancy

7/25/2026 at 4:50:43 PM

> As Fry says, the limit to someone's understanding is never their ability to understand. The limit is always in their motivation to care. And she sees her role as being to provide that motivation.

> "I think what you need to do," she says about the key to connecting with a wide audience, "is to create a hole in people’s imagination. If I can create just a moment where you want to know the next bit – you know exactly the size and shape it needs to be to fulfill your craving for that exact piece of information – then everybody's in."

I wish we had more teachers that thought like this.

by fumeux_fume

7/25/2026 at 5:13:06 PM

Seems like great advice. Beyond what we think are intellectual curiosities, passion tends to be the main driver.

by ricardo81

7/25/2026 at 4:58:02 AM

I’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)

by tomfakes

7/25/2026 at 8:36:16 AM

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.

by Novosell

7/25/2026 at 9:16:49 AM

I feel like they're pretty self-aware about it. I dont mind it, it keeps the episodes engaging and family friendly.

by preuceian

7/25/2026 at 3:32:28 PM

But I mean, fluid dynamics is amazing. It still gives me frisson when certain ideas are reminded to me. I think she's completely honest with reactions, she loves science. Many of us share her enthusiasm and I love seeing hers.

by telesilla

7/25/2026 at 7:03:30 AM

Yesssss

The video version is also a lot of fun to watch while doing dishes

by banditelol

7/25/2026 at 8:43:00 AM

Especially the (slightly frightening) animations they show!

by DStiego

7/25/2026 at 5:55:13 AM

It's also on youtube, so you can watch if you are so inclined.

by nhinck3

7/25/2026 at 10:15:12 AM

I also like it a lot, but Hannah is a bit too giggly at times. Michael has some nerdish intonations. But still love it.

by emmelaich

7/25/2026 at 3:13:53 PM

I love her gigglyness :D

by nunodonato

7/25/2026 at 6:33:02 AM

It’s my favorite podcast right now!

by cush

7/25/2026 at 5:52:55 AM

I really love Hannah, great communicator and keeps it interesting. If you're interested, I'd also recommend Brian Cox as a similarly fantastic representative for maths & science.

by arlattimore

7/25/2026 at 1:33:56 PM

Anyone else here still follow her advice about how to quickly evict all the hot air in your car on a summer's day?

by comprev

7/25/2026 at 2:42:24 PM

No, but now I really want to know what the advice is! Can you share it?

by edanm

7/25/2026 at 2:53:39 PM

Roll down an opposite side window and flap a single open door on the other side

by gregdaniels421

7/25/2026 at 4:41:10 PM

Yep, it was a game changer in this Texas heat!

by malshe

7/25/2026 at 3:49:22 PM

Yup. And using it a lot recently ... !

by kitd

7/25/2026 at 1:15:26 PM

Ha, this prize comes with a million rupees cash, which makes it worth about $8 more than a Fields medal.

Correction: $292 less than the Fields, I went through too many layers of currency conversion. Still, it's nearly the same.

by card_zero

7/25/2026 at 4:30:21 AM

Well deserved. She is an excellent science communicator.

by vaylian

7/25/2026 at 4:44:37 AM

Completely agree. I’d recommend her book “Hello world: How to be human in the age of the machine” to anyone who isn’t familiar. It’s one of those books where even if you know about programming, AI etc it’s worth reading because she hasn’t dumbed down the content even though she’s made it accessible to folks who don’t.

Fun fact: I heard an interview with her and she said she got into maths because her family are all crazy about Formula One racing and she thought working on the aerodynamics etc would be interesting. She eventually got her “dream job” working on aerodynamics of F1 cars and found it really boring because she didn’t really get to do maths, all she did was write python simulations, leave them to run overnight and read the results in the morning, so she phoned her supervisor (who had worked his personal contacts to introduce her for the F1 job) and went back to working in his lab.

by seanhunter

7/25/2026 at 7:27:00 AM

I met her when she gave a lecture in London about algorithms as part of a promotional tour for the book.

We chatted about Ada Lovelace (a topic she also did a documentary about for the BBC) and she was exactly the same in person as her personality is on the TV / Radio / Podcasts.

That was definitely a highlight of that year for me.

by hnlmorg

7/25/2026 at 4:55:06 AM

Any online writing that you'd recommend?

by skybrian

7/25/2026 at 4:42:58 AM

Agreed. A gifted communicator of over-looked topics in science and mathematics and is well deserved of this prize.

by rvz

7/25/2026 at 5:15:21 AM

She really is an extraordinary communicator.

She has an actor's control of her countenance, which allows her control over that mischievous, slightly conspiratorial tone she uses when she wants you to know something really fun, or be excited by some knowledge.

I love to recommend this charming little clip from a fun sort of "science of Christmas" short film for kids she appeared in with the brilliant Lenny Rush:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MMZ_FCIgEEo

by dofm

7/25/2026 at 3:29:35 PM

I went to grab lunch then other day at work* and she was just randomly sitting in the canteen like a normal person.

I did like a quadruple-take then totally non-covertly took a photo to add their life-essence to my celebrity collection.

* Google DeepMind in LON

by frythrowaway

7/25/2026 at 12:54:56 PM

Really well deserved! And to think her whole life's trajectory changed because of her year of saying "yes" to everything

by AFF87

7/25/2026 at 7:56:15 AM

History 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

by rramadass

7/26/2026 at 3:49:21 AM

I heard it first through the the book Leelavati's daugthers (2019). India's celebration of women in science.

by orsenthil

7/26/2026 at 5:42:06 AM

Excellent, didn't know of the book; thanks for the pointer.

Wikipedia has the details; Lilavati's Daughters: The Women Scientists of India - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilavati%27s_Daughters

From "Indian Academy of Sciences" - https://www.ias.ac.in/Initiatives/Women_in_Science/Lilavatis...

Ebook available from internet archive - https://archive.org/details/A0560IASLeelavathisDaughterFullB...

Everybody should buy a copy for their children, especially young girls.

I still remember the "Rocket Women of India" behind ISRO's Chandrayaan/Mangalyaan missions and how inspiring it was to learn about them. There can be no better role models; extremely intelligent, humble and all-round achievers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZNhtZ8Ufy0&t=1s and https://rocket-women.com/2023/08/the-rocket-women-of-chandra... and https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/women-scientist...

PS: In this context, see also the 2-vol The Mind of an Engineer, a series from Scientists/Researchers/Engineers of India - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46365415

by rramadass

7/25/2026 at 7:21:58 AM

She's really nice, fun and engaging. She has a recent video about AI agents selling mugshots that's well made and clear.

by bambax

7/25/2026 at 7:21:46 PM

She is one of my favourite humans. Clever, witty, funny, hot and on the top I love the (timbre of) her voice. I listen to it on the podcast that she does with Michael Steven (The Rest is Science).

by aquir

7/26/2026 at 2:10:36 AM

I hope to see Grant Sanderson win it in 2030

by agnishom

7/26/2026 at 6:46:44 PM

well deserved :)

by nektro

7/25/2026 at 5:43:47 PM

She gave a talk at my then employer during the pandemic, I think that was my first time listening to her. Well deserved.

by rorylawless

7/25/2026 at 4:03:15 PM

Congrats Hannah! Been following since the TED talk, and her videos have always been a welcome addition to my day!

by gamedna

7/25/2026 at 12:34:39 PM

She makes a great duo with Michael from V Sauce

by chakintosh

7/25/2026 at 11:22:02 AM

interestingly you are starting to see a similar emphasis on outreach in tech these days with "forward deployed engineers" and "ai developer relations". Good to know people realize outreach is important. cheers and celebrations to professor fry!

by amazingamazing

7/25/2026 at 7:50:03 AM

Truly worth the prize! Sometimes I feel that she is punished by the algorithm, but great content nevertheless

by urba_

7/25/2026 at 11:33:21 AM

I get recommended her videos all the time despite not really watching many of them. Her and Jimmy Carr in the UK.

by nephihaha

7/25/2026 at 12:58:16 PM

I really liked her "Uncharted with Hannah Fry" podcast, sorry it ended.

by chris_st

7/25/2026 at 7:56:28 AM

Made some of my favorite videos on YouTube. Wonderful!

by sudo_cowsay

7/25/2026 at 7:32:18 AM

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!

by chews

7/25/2026 at 5:27:25 PM

I'd love to see her do a modern version of James Burke's Connections series. I think she's got a similar type of dry wit to Burke.

by ndsipa_pomu

7/25/2026 at 11:26:57 AM

Well, I'm continually getting her videos suggested to me on YouTube. I'll just say that she has a very BBC manner to her.

by nephihaha

7/25/2026 at 10:53:50 AM

Why not 3Blue1Brown, Numberphile or Mathologer?

by xchip

7/25/2026 at 11:19:06 AM

They'd all be deserving, but only one person can win every 4 years. You can read about how the prize is awarded on the website: https://www.mathunion.org/imu-awards/leelavati-prize

by rwmj

7/25/2026 at 11:37:33 AM

Agree. 3Blue1Brown is a personal favorite and an astonishing teacher. May his pillow forever be fresh and cold on on both sides.

by felooboolooomba

7/25/2026 at 11:17:57 AM

Brady has enough awards.

by Jtarii

7/25/2026 at 6:11:46 AM

Look forward to seeing her on Celebrity Traitors UK later this year.

by sc970

7/25/2026 at 6:14:00 AM

It's quite an interesting line-up: https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2026/the-celebrity-traitor...

by rwmj

7/25/2026 at 7:29:21 AM

I normally can’t stand the show but the previous celebrity one was superb! This line up looks great too.

by hnlmorg

7/25/2026 at 1:53:41 PM

It's not my sort of show but I'd put my money on Julie Hesmondhalgh or (wildcard bet) Amol Rajan.

by dofm

7/25/2026 at 4:45:14 PM

If Alan Carr can win the previous series then it’s safe to say anyone can.

by hnlmorg