Lectures
AOUG Officers organise an annual academic ‘Foundation Lecture’ on the first Friday of October on campus. Members and Open University staff can purchase tickets for this event, which includes a buffet lunch. If you would like to attend, please contact the AOUG Office info@aoug.org.uk
The first lecture was held in London in November 1995 and was named ‘The Jean Posthuma Memorial Lecture’ in honour of a long standing London member who had been on the Executive Committee (then known as the National Committee) for many years as both the Publicity Officer and as the Editor of OMEGA. At the 1996 AGM it was agreed to continue with a series of annual lectures in her name.
However by 2008, several very significant members had sadly deceased and it was felt that these members also needed some recognition. Thus a Resolution was presented and passed at the 2008 AGM to change the name and these lectures have ever since been known as ‘The Association of Open University Foundation Lecture’ (or ‘AOUG Foundation Lecture’ for short). At first the lectures moved around the UK but in more recent years it was decided to link these with the AOUG Foundation for Education Research Awards Ceremony to create a joint event.
AOUG Foundation Lectures are presented by either prominent members of existing or past OU staff, or by recipients of an AOUG Bursary.
Foundation Lectures:
2025 – Friday 3rd October
Daniel Clarke, recipient of the AOUG 2024 Colin Reed Bursary is to present his talk entitled ‘Aperiodic honeycombs: From maths to material’.
Daniel so impressed the AOUG Foundation for Education Trustees at his interview with the way he explained his research that they decided to award him the Bursary. With this money he would be able to develop his research from the research modelling into commerical versions that could have a future in many industrial processes and for advances in replacement joints for medical use. In the advert for his lecture Daniel summarises the aims of his lecture in the following way.
“Engineering honeycombs are synthetic materials that are designed to have desirable properties that are not normally fouind in natural materials. Honeycombs are traditionally constructed from periodic arrangements of cells. My research is concerned with honeycombs based on aperiodic tilings. These tilings consist of tiles that are not arranged periodically, they are however ordered and display rotational symmetries not found in periodic tilings. In this talk, I will present the mathematical rules by which these tilings are generated, and how these are then converted into physical materials that can be tested. I will also go through some of the interesting properties they display and hopefully the beauty that this accessible field of mathematics can produce.”
2024 – Friday 4th October
Captain William Wells, with nearly fifty years seafarer experience, had been a master mariner, former ship’s captain and licensed Commercial Marine Pilot as well as a guest lecturer on the Cunard Line.
Thus AOUG was very fortunate to secure him to be our speaker for Foundation Lecture at very short notice, when our original OU lecturer was unable to attend. Captain Wells treated attendees to very interesting images of the Atlantic Ocean as he explained the ‘ridge of mountains’ roughly vertically in the middle of the Atlantic, but twelve thousand miles long. Thus making them the longest mountain range on earth but deep beneath the sea. Volcanic activity spouted the ‘Black Smokers’ caused by sulphides and the ‘White Smokers’ caused by calcium and silicon. Their cooling larva created islands such as the relatively recent one of Surtesy.
However he also spoke of the marine life. Near the surface this is plentiful, then lower are Lion Fish and Jelly fish. Below them come Black Dragon Fish and squids and other creatures are Star Fish and sea urchins. However living in total darkness below 1 kilometre where there is no light at all and also very low oxygen levels can be found Gelatinous Siphonophores that feed on dead whales and other fish that sink to the bottom.