Tomorrow, we’re all heading to Cambridge for the biennial Woolly Owl talk.

What is the Woolly Owl? Here is the official description:

There has been a biennial Oxbridge applied mathematics meeting since 1983. After a number of meetings, Oxford decided they wanted to score the talks and have a winner. They then decided that what was needed was a trophy; Oxford’s idea of a trophy was a woolly owl.

In 1999 and 2001 the woolly owl was awarded to Cambridge. Since this left John Ockendon heartbroken, we photographed the owl so that John could at least remind himself of what it looks like. In 2003 Oxford regained the b****y owl.

There has been a proposal to incinerate the owl, and then hold the ashes in Cambridge no matter who wins.

NB: We also won in 2005 and 2007

dream

I’m treating tomorrow’s talk with a sort of mild annoyance and neglect. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. In fact, I just managed to finish the slides for the talk, now 16 minutes before midnight the day before. Won’t have time for a run-through, though I’ve done various versions of the talk over the last year. It should be fine.

Nice thing is that I have probably the best slot for the day, being first up. Usually, being first to present at a several-day-long conference is bad, as people tend to arrive late (or not at all). On the other hand, being first for a day-long thing is as good as it gets. People are focused, fresh, and alert.

You can take a look at the talk here. Or you can just drool at the most impressive page, where I’m supposed to explain how our ship-wave theory can be extended to more complicated hull geometries.

Oh, and on the last page, I included this little gem.

That was actually a conversation between me and the boss. Pearls of wisdom indeed. Brilliant as he is, he’s not the best when it comes to practical advice or vague questions like, “How do you feel about our progress?” or “If maths was a flavour of ice cream, what flavour would it be?”

It’ll be an interesting day. Cambridge was one of the schools I’d turned down, so I’m anxious to see how things could have turned out differently had I taken the blue pill instead of the red.

Edit: We lost the owl. Oh well. It was totally rigged, anyways. Personally, I thought the Oxons had more impressive talks, while the Cantabs had more consistently good talks — it was close. Plus, I bet the judges didn’t want to hand the owl over to us for the forth consecutive win.