Paula Rowińska

Former blog contributor

Course: Mathematics of Planet Earth

From: Poland

Hi! My name is Paula and I'm passionate about our amazing world - including the world of maths. This is why I decided to do a PhD in applied mathematics. I'm lucky to be a part of a team of scientists who use their knowledge to prevent climate change. When I'm not doing my research, I write (this is my third blog!), cycle, sing and dance, play piano, learn languages and refuse to beat the addiction to theatres. Find out more about me: https://paularowinska.wordpress.com/, http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/p.rowinska15, @paularowinska!

25 things I learned in 25 years

Mathematics of Planet Earth

This week I celebrated my 25th birthday, which put me in a slightly reflective mood. Here are 25 things I learned in 25 years. Cliché warning!

  1. Failing doesn’t make me a failure. The only way to avoid failing is to stop trying, and this won’t get me anywhere.
  2. I fight for my friendships, but accept it when they die out. Throughout my life I’ll be able to keep only a few good friends, most of them will disappear at some point. I let them go and make the room in my life for new amazing people waiting for me out there.

180 seconds

Mathematics of Planet Earth

Years of research squeezed into three minutes? That was the task I and eighteen other participants of Imperial College Three Minute Thesis competition had to face on Tuesday 24th April 2018.

The rules are very simple. Contestants get exactly three minutes to describe their research to general audience, using only one static slide. Sounds easy, but trust me, it’s extremely difficult. How do you introduce your narrow topic, explain what your research involves and persuade the audience that they should care in the first place?

All nineteen of us managed to do that. I learned a lot about a variety of research areas, from planting forests in Brazil, to optimal mixing of coffee and milk, to gravitational waves.

Lunch break!

Mathematics of Planet Earth

In my post about affording London prices I suggested bringing lunches to work, just to save money. No matter how busy I am, I do it most days, thanks to a collection of delicious and ridiculously quick recipes I collected (let me know if you’d like me to post them!). However, sometimes I treat myself to a lunch at Imperial. Where do I go?

At South Kensington campus we have a big choice of catering outlets that serve everything from sandwiches and salads to Japanese and Indian. About 11am they post the menu of the day, which helps to make an informed choice (and procrastinate from work for a few minutes).

“Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny”

Mathematics of Planet Earth

My plan for today was to publish an article about π, to celebrate the International Pi Day (check out my last year’s post). Unfortunately we all woke up to hear very sad news: Stephen Hawking has died.

Only yesterday I and my office mate J. had an interesting conversation about the importance of social skills in academia. We came to the conclusion that while the stereotypical maths or physics professor is, for lack of a better word, a weirdo, such scientists are more likely than not to lose the battle for academic jobs. Research is all about collaboration and nobody wants to have rude or antisocial colleagues.

Nobels, cats and some pseudo-profound bull****

Mathematics of Planet Earth

Watching cat videos can give you a Nobel Prize.

Well, Ig Nobel, to be precise, but still sounds impressive. That’s what I learned thanks to our Graduate School.

I just came back from the Ig Nobel Award Tour Show 2018 hosted annually by Imperial. Ig Nobels are awarded every year at Harvard University by actual Nobel laureates. The only criterion is: the research first makes us laugh, and than think.

Having attended the show last year, I suffered from a stomach pain after laughing too much. The “goat man”, Ig Nobel prize winner in Biology who decided to become a goat for a few days, still makes me giggle.

I want to sit next to my friend!

Mathematics of Planet Earth

If you’re thinking about studying maths at Imperial, you might be wondering what kind of problems first year studenst are supposed to solve in the tutorials. Last term I was a graduate teaching assistant (GTA) for a course Probability and Statistics I. Let’s see an example of a question posed by the lecturer, prof. Emma McCoy.

Imagine that n people, including yourself and a friend, are seated at random in a row of n chairs. What is the probability that you sit next to your friend?

This problem is easier than you think, especially after following the lectures. I’ll explain how to tackle this problem here.

Time to Talk Day 2018

Mathematics of Planet Earth

Mental health and university… recently I feel like I’m discussing this problem every single day. As a student representative I communicate this issue to colleagues, staff members, university support systems, external panels etc. I also wrote about mental and PhD – even if you’re not a PhD student, have a read, it might apply to you as well.

However, not everyone is talking about it. Some aren’t aware that this issue is important, some don’t care and many just are afraid or don’t know how to offer support to someone who might struggle. Tomorrow is a great opportunity to give it a try – Time to Talk Day 2018.

Feeling blue?

Mathematics of Planet Earth

The mission of my life is to show people surprising ways of using maths. However, today I’ll make an exception: I’ll talk about an example of maths abuse.

Surely you’ve heard that tomorrow we have the Blue Monday, apparently the most depressing day of the year. Even restaurants and shops all over the UK become almost charities by offering great deals (I can’t believe I just linked you to the Mirror!) to make this day a bit brighter for us, customers – I’m sure they do it solely out of goodness of their hearts, without any profit…You might also have heard that it was scientifically proven and that this date is found using a mathematical formula.

When PhD resembles break-ups a bit too much…

Mathematics of Planet Earth

Let’s face it: doing a PhD isn’t always rainbows and unicorns. The process can be painful and annoying, and at some point you’re probably going to get completely stuck. If you’ve ever done any research, you definitely know what I’m talking about.

There’s something you need to do, usually some task that was supposed to be easy – a toy example, an almost standard code, a “quick” experiment to check your hypothesis. And here you are, spending long hours, days, weeks, even months, not even closer to solving your problem. You’ve tried everything, used all possible sources you could find, but this devil isn’t giving up.

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