[4]  Royal Institution Masterclass (November 2018)

Institution: Heriot-Watt University 

Title: The #Maths of Social Media

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The Royal Institution Mathematics Masterclasses, jointly organised with Heriot-Watt and Napier Universities, are interactive and hands-on super-curricular classes designed to stimulate and encourage young people in the art and practice of mathematics. Masterclasses are designed to stretch and inspire keen and talented pupils from all over the Edinburgh and Lothian regions, allowing them to broaden their mathematical knowledge and develop a sense of enjoyment in the subject. Classes are led by top experts from academia and industry, and cover a broad range of mathematical topics. The series runs for eight weeks in the autumn term, starting in mid-September. Schools from the Edinburgh and Lothian regions nominate up to two S2 pupils to take part in the series; pupils are selected based on their enthusiasm for mathematics and their work ethic rather than purely on their mathematical ability. More information about Royal Institution Masterclasses is available online here.

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The #Maths of Social Media Masterclass introduces students to the basics of modelling social networks and the spread of information throughout them. The areas of mathematics students explore are (i) graph theory, (ii) combinatorics and (iii) probability theory. Understanding how information moves on graphs is an important area of modern applied mathematics. For instance, advertising companies are interested in maximising the viewership of their advertisements (and also targeting the “right” viewership); understanding how information moves around social media is vital to this. Perhaps more importantly, world governments are interested in how information spreads on social media, as morally-compromised people can use the internet to influence the outcome of elections, referenda... During the Masterclass, students begin to explore and model the mathematics of social networks with extended investigation offered via an Elite Homework Sheet for interested participants.

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