Seminar Al@Bicocca: Giulia Dal Verme
A groupoid C*-algebraic Bass-Serre theorem
Department of Mathematics and Applications
Please Don't Delete: Math Dialogues
A cycle of meetings to talk about moments in the history of mathematics and aspects of its method. With a style that is not necessarily technical, the aim is to highlight the cultural, aesthetic, creative, playful and didactic value of hypothetical-deductive thinking and the actuality of the landscapes it is able to draw.
Future Meetings
Prof. Ciro Ciliberto
- 29/10/25 - Enumeration in geometry: a charming millennial history and recent developments
Updates will follow
Past Meetings
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Inevitable crossings and random demonstrations
On 11/03/25, at the University Library Headquarters - Building U6 Agorà (Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milano), the 7th meeting of the cycle "Please Don't Delete: Maths Dialogues" was held with Prof. Alessandra CARACENI as speaker.
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One hundred years of Biomathematics: a pathway along the path traced by Volterra and Lotka
On 24/10/24, at the University Library Headquarters - Building U6 Agorà (Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milano), the 6th meeting of the cycle "Please Don't Delete: Maths Dialogues" was held with Prof. Mimmo IANNELLI as speaker.
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Drawing Geographical Maps: From Ptolemy to Milnor and Thurston
On 23/05/24, at the Water Tower - Building U36 (Viale Sarca 232, Milan), the 5th meeting of the cycle "Please Don't Delete: Mathematical Dialogues" was held with Prof. Athanase PAPADOPOULOS as speaker.
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Have we lost the structures? What is and what has become structuralism
On 18 January 2024, at the University Library Headquarters - Building U6 Agorà (Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milano), the 4th meeting of the cycle "Please Don't Delete: Maths Dialogues" was held with Prof. Frederic PATRAS as speaker.
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The harmony of the spheres, the whisper of chaos
On 7 November 2023, at Room Martini (U6-4) - Building U6 Agorà (Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milano), the 3rd meeting of the cycle "Please Don't Delete: Maths Dialogues" was held with Prof. Antonio GIORGILLI as speaker.
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From Riemann to Queneau. Interweavings between mathematics and literature
On 8 June 2023, at the University Library Headquarters - Building U6 Agorà (Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milano), the 2nd meeting of the cycle "Please Don't Delete: Maths Dialogues" was held with Prof. Claudio BARTOCCI as speaker.
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A partial reconstruction of a lost Hellenistic dynamic theory
On 11 May 2023, at the Water Tower - Building U36 (Viale Sarca 232, Milano), the 1st meeting of the cycle "Please Don't Delete: Mathematical Dialogues" was held with Prof. Lucio RUSSO as speaker.
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Events for Schools (Primary and Secondary)
Some of the events organised for schools:
- A day among female scientists at Bicocca: primary and secondary schools invited to discover female scientists through virtual visits to laboratories and interactive games (2021 edition).
- Svelami-B project: a multi-year project in which schools visited the laboratories of the science departments (including the mathematics department).
- Summer School: Discovering Cryptography (edition 2022).
- Summer School: Initiatives of the Department of Mathematics and Applications
- Discovery workshop on The secrets of mathematics and female mathematicians: from reflections and quizzes on the lives of important female mathematicians to the problem of encoding and decoding messages, readable only by the recipient who knows the ‘secret’, from antiquity to the present day.
- Workshop on The mathematics of epidemics: by means of quizzes and interactive activities, we learn about the main epidemic models and what types of predictions they allow us to make.
Paths for Transversal Skills and Orientation
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For many years, the University of Milan-Bicocca offers Paths for Transversal Skills and Orientation (PCTO) to allow students in the last three years of high school to enrich their knowledge, enhance their vocations and individual interests by reflecting on transversal skills, study paths and knowledge of the university context. The experience can be useful both from an educational and an orientation point of view in terms of choosing a future university path.
The PCTO’s represent a teaching methodology that promotes in students the acquisition and/or enhancement of the curricular skills and disciplinary knowledge of the chosen course of study and of the transversal skills characterising the current educational experience, for a conscious orientation towards the world of work and/or the prosecution of post- diploma studies.
The activities may be organised on a curricular or extracurricular modality and, at the end of the path, a certificate of attendance is issued for participation in at least 70% of the hours.
For the year 2024/25, the PCTO offer of the Department of Mathematics and Applications is included in the PNRR Project for orientation in the school-university transition.
The paths available at the Department are described below; interested schools can contact the heads of the individual courses for more detailed information on the content, structure of the path and period of execution.
The procedure for activating the paths is described in the “How to participate” section of the University's webpage dedicated to PNRR Paths.
The increasing difficulties in mathematics among secondary school students in particular and citizens in general are known by all. This gap damage the basis for the exercise of active citizenship called for by the Recommendations of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Already at the beginning of the 20th century, the greatest mathematicians of the time attributed these difficulties to a penalising view of the discipline, seen only as a one-way transmission of techniques and results. To bring students to a more correct view of the discipline and promote a positive attitude towards the subject, we propose a path of workshop meetings on the PBL model (Problem-Based Learning).
There will be 5 meetings of 3 hours each.
We propose a path of workshop meetings on the PBL model (Problem-Based Learning). Students will have the opportunity to live actively the experience of the ‘researcher’: in each meeting, students will be asked to identify themselves in the role of the "mathematician", working in groups on an assigned problem, under the supervision of teachers/tutors. After this phase of active discovery, at the end of the meeting each group will report, in the presence of an experienced mathematician, on their own solution to the problem. In this final phase, a large group discussion will be promoted to compare possible different solutions by the groups.
It will be possible for the school tutors to recommend mathematical areas to be preferred in the choice of these problems. When the topic of the workshop will be identified, a university lecturer will be identified to function as an "expert" for the project.
Code: B.TEC/SCIE.21
Duration: 15 hours
Project Manager: Marina Cazzola
Meetings to prepare for the study of university mathematics. The aim is not to prepare for the ‘entry tests’, but to familiarise students with the language, logical tools and symbolism of mathematics, with the dual purpose of familiarising them with the study method they will encounter in the first years of a degree programme in Mathematics, Physics or Statistics, and to help them overcome any previous gaps in the study method (and not necessarily in contents) that might hinder their future path.
Cycles of lessons/exercises will be proposed on:
- how to study a maths book (this is not preparation for entry tests)
- understanding a definition
- studying a demonstration, verifying it on examples
- analysing different classes of reasoning and distinguish a completely wrong argument from one that has a useful idea and can be translated into a correct demonstration.
Code: B.TEC/SCIE.22
Duration: 15 hours
Project Manager: Giona Veronelli
The same scientific result can be communicated and perceived in essentially different ways; therefore the importance of a basic mathematical and statistical education and honest scientific communication is evident. We will take common examples (orders of magnitude and their perception, ways of describing the variation of a quantity, the concept of probability, statistics), focusing on both the mathematical concept and the way it is communicated, graphically and verbally.
Topics
- Scientific communication: what it is, what is it for and what it requires
- Orders of magnitude: what they are and how they are used, their role in scientific communication
- Percentages and proportions: how to describe the increase and decrease of a quantity, problems in the common perception of these descriptions
- Conceptual basis of probability and statistics: various descriptions of probability, common mistakes and misconceptions, conditional probability, what statistics does, what is a test, how to interpret the results, how easy it is to misunderstand what they tell us
- Basic concepts of scientific communication with graphs (and infographics)
The course will be mainly in lecture mode, but there will also be group exercises and discussions on examples taken from current events.
Code: B.TEC/SCIE.24
Duration: 8 hours (extendable to 15)
Project Manager: Samuele Mongodi
We will discuss what a mathematical model is, what is it for, what is not for, why it works and when it doesn't work. In particular, I will focus on three types of modelling (flows, time-dependent systems, graphs) and their applications in some areas (pollution, ecosystems, viability, economic production), trying to understand why one type of model is chosen over another, what information can be acquired and for which questions a certain model is useless.
Topics
- What is a mathematical model, how and when it works
- Flows, causal models, feedback phenomena
- Successions by recurrence and growth models
- Predator models and SIR model; qualitative study
- Graphs, graph search algorithms and social networks
The course will alternate moments of theoretical explanation with moments of numerical experimentation and discussion of the use of mathematical models in decision-making processes.
Code: B.TEC/SCIE.25
Duration: 6 hours (extendable to 15)
Project Manager: Samuele Mongodi
Within the PNRR Project for orientation in the school-university transition, there is another initiative dedicated to students in the final years of high school, the Summer School.
Summer School
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An initiative aimed at showing the Beauty of studying Mathematics, the Fatigue that many students encounter, and the Method that allows them to confront this fatigue and understand aspects of mathematical reasoning. This activity is not a preparation for "entry tests", but is aimed at people who are passionate about Mathematics, regardless of the degree courses they want to enrol in.
The Summer School also aims, through lessons and seminars, to familiarise students with the context of higher education and its value in society, to acquire didactical experience, participation and workshops, to test and consolidate their knowledge and skills as well as to find out about possible future job opportunities.
Visit the dedicated page for more information
Self-evaluation Path "Studying Mathematics"
Self-evaluation project "Studying Mathematics"
Many people enrolling in Mathematics encounter serious difficulties, and the main help in overcoming these problems comes from dialogue between the individual student and his or her High School Mathematics teacher.
We believe, however, that it may be useful to have one more tool to evaluate personal aptitude and preparation for this Bachelor's Degree Programme.
We propose that you try the following collection of exercises designed for this purpose.
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We ask you to dedicate the necessary attention and time.
This work is not aimed at "entry test" preparation.
If, after doing the work proposed in the document, you still have doubts or problems regarding your preparation or your choice to enrol in the Bachelor Degree Programme in Mathematics, we are available for a meeting at our Department. Please write to us at studia.matematica@unimib.it and we will contact you.