Thomas Woolley

Thomas Woolley

@thomasewoolley.bsky.social

Mathematical biologist and outreacher extraordinaire. Reader at Cardiff University

167 followers26 following7 posts

Lovely email to get on a Monday morning "Dear Thomas Woolley, Congratulations! It is our pleasure to inform you that you have been nominated for Most Outstanding Learning Experience in the Enriching Student Life Awards 2026!" We don't do it for the awards, but nominations are nice.

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Although the patterns on ellipses do tend to circle-like behaviour they don't tend to act like lines as the ellipses become thinner. To explain this I had to use Mathieu equations, which first appeared in 1868! Mathematics: once true, always true.

Due to their simplicity, rectangular and circular domains are often used to represent reality as they make the mathematics easier to work with. I assumed I could use an elliptical domain to interpolate between the circle and the thin rectangle. How wrong I was.

Thomas Woolley reposted

Thomas Woolley reposted

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