Rowena Ball
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Affiliations
Groups
- Mathematical physics, Researcher
Research interests
Research Keywords
Applied mathematics, Complex dynamical systems, Mathematical chemical physics, Non-Western and Indigenous mathematics and sciences, Origin of life.
Links
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, ANU
Projects
(I) I lead a small, but enthusiastic and growing, research group on non-Western and Indigenous mathematics, and truth-telling in mathematics history. In our researches we are finding that mathematical concepts, including advanced concepts that usually are attributed as exclusive products of the development of European or Western mathematics over the last two or three centuries, and are taught only at university level, were known to Indigenous societies, and expressed culturally. On this basis, a variety of projects are available at all levels, depending on a student's background and interests, some of which may include, but are not restricted to, the following topics:
- How mathematical knowledge is spread: Tracing the transmission of the calculus to Europe, from its origin in India and expression by the Kerala school in the 15th C – historical and epistemic modelling approaches, second order effects.
- Investigations on Aboriginal smoke telegraphy (fieldwork possible) and mathematics, fluid dynamics and chemistry involved. Leading to modelling of smoke flows from cultural burning and from enhanced wildfires in a warming world using ethical machine learning methods on satellite datasets, and/or the mists of particulates ('smoke') emitted from astrophysical combustion events (supernovae) using astronomical datasets.
- Non-Gregorian and Indigenous calendars – mathematics and implementation. Calendar making and use is one of the most overlooked topics in mathematics history despite their significance in the development of astronomical and mathematical knowledge and their ongoing economic importance.
- Ethics in mathematics in the age of AI, with Dr Maurice Chiodo, Cambridge University. Some background at https://cueims.soc.srcf.net/2025/advanced
- Studies of Indigenous transformations of wayfinding knowledge into the night sky, and the inverse transformation, using graph theory and other tools.
- Cultural concepts of space and Native Title. In Western mathematics, objects called spaces have appeared relatively recently: vector, topological, measured or Banach spaces and so on, definitions of which do not seem to be spatial: they call on algebra, set theory or analysis. When the courts consider Native Title applications, the mathematics of land ownership also seems to be anything but spatial. What is it that is actually being mapped? Is it a set?
(II) Fluctuation physics modelling and the role of fluctuations in stimulating the emergence of living molecular systems.
Location
Room 3.82, Hanna Neumann Building 145