Mark Ronan

Latest Theatre Reviews

Billy Budd, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, April 2019

April 25, 2019

A hugely moving performance of Deborah Warner’s new production under the baton of Ivor Bolton, with Toby Spence superb as Captain Vere, with Brindley Sherratt a vivid Claggart, and Jacques Imbrailo conveying the fatal charm and blinding honesty of Billy himself. See my review in The Article.

Faust, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, April 2019

April 15, 2019

Sensational performance by Michael Fabiano as Faust, with devilishly seductive Erwin Schrott as Mephistophélès, and Mandy Fredrich making a fine ROH debut as Marguerite. She replaced Irina Lungu (fever and sore throat), who in turn replaced Diana Damrau (slipped disc), arriving just in time by taxi from the airport. Superb conducting by Dan Ettinger. See …

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Latest Journalism

Brotherly and sisterly love

André and Simone Weil were two sides of the same coin: impatient; determined; brilliant; attracted to ancient wisdom and ideas. Standpoint magazine, May 2019, pp. 61–2

The English National Opera 2019/20 Season

The English National Opera needs to attract new audiences, so they must produce stagings that people want to see. Trying to be in the vanguard of bizarre reinterpretations won’t work, so what does the next season hold?

Playing the numbers game

This review of David Spiegelhalter’s excellent new book The Art of Statistics shows that the methodology behind the numbers is hugely important, but the numbers themselves can still be misinterpreted. Standpoint magazine, April 2019, pp 61–2

Brought to book

Some academic publishers abuse the system by producing fifth rate books with a good title and blurb, which American university libraries feel obliged to buy. Standpoint magazine, April 2019, p. 8.

First woman to win the prestigious Abel mathematics prize

My ex-colleague Karen Uhlenbeck has just won the Abel Prize, mathematicians’ answer to the Nobel Prize, which has no category for mathematics. Bravo to her and to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for instituting this prize named after the brilliant young Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel. My summary in The Article.

Civilisation made concrete

The great ‘Hanging Garden’ was built by the ancient Assyrians, who were pioneering builders and engineers, Standpoint magazine, February 2019, p.70.

Is this the real life or just fantasy?

It may not be possible to know if we are living in a simulation — but perhaps we don’t need certainty. Standpoint magazine, Dec 2018, p.78.

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Feature

Symmetry and the Monster is the story of a mathematical quest that began two hundred years ago in revolutionary France, led to the biggest collaboration ever between mathematicians across the world, and revealed the ‘Monster’ – not monstrous at all, but a structure of exquisite beauty and complexity.

This book tells for the first time the fascinating story of the biggest theorem ever to have been proved. Mark Ronan graphically describes not only the last few decades of the chase, but also some of the more interesting byways, including my personal favourite, the one I called “Monstrous Moonshine”.

John H. Conway, von Neumann Chair of Mathematics, Princeton University

Opera on 3: for the BBC Radio 3 broadcast (on 19 November 2016) of Parsifal from this summer’s Bayreuth Festival, I was the guest with presenter Christopher Cook. We discussed the opera and its production, which I reviewed for the Daily Telegraph on 27 July 2016.

Truth and Beauty: The Hidden World of Symmetry

On the face of it, symmetry may seem simple, but diving beneath the surface reveals a whole new world. Over the last 100 years, the mathematical idea of symmetry has proved to be a guiding light for the world of physics. But what does a mathematician mean by symmetry? How does this link in with the world around us? And could it be the key to the mysterious ‘Theory of Everything’?

This was a BBC Radio programme on Symmetry in the Naked Scientists series. Here is the link