NEWSLETTER

Young Mathematicians‘ Column (YMCo)
Explain Your Thesis in Three Minutes
Marie Kreusch (Université de Liège, Belgium)
Think about your research. Have you ever tried to explain
it to the average person in the street? You have to
use simple words, catch their attention and try to tell a
story with a good plot and hopefully a happy ending. It is
not that easy! Many PhD candidates and young doctors
each year rise to the challenge and explain their research
in three minutes to non-specialist audiences.
One of the recent initiatives of universities to promote
research, and PhDs in particular, is the creation of
the following contests: “Three Minute Thesis (3MT®)”
and “Ma thèse en 180 secondes (MT180)”. 1 Each participant
(PhD candidate or young doctor) gives in English
or French (depending on which contest) a generalised,
clear, concise and convincing talk on their thesis in three
minutes. The exercise develops effective presentation
and communication skills.
I met Adrien Deliege, a PhD candidate in mathematics
at the University of Liège (Belgium). He won the
international final contest MT180 in Paris on 1 October
2015. This young mathematician is studying wavelet
transforms and applies this method to climate data such
as temperature or time series. Here are his impressions
of the competition and his answers to my questions.
How did the idea come to you to take part in this contest?
Was it on your own initiative or was it under the
initiative of your advisor?
I heard about the contest last year and I found the concept
interesting, so I decided to go and see the Belgian
final, which was in Liège. I found the candidates very
impressive and this motivated me. I noticed it was the
kind of contest in which I like to take part. Therefore, a
few months later, I thought: ‘Ok, let’s do this’, and here
I am.
What is the main difference to a talk given in the context
of a ‘classical’ mathematical conference?
Besides the time limit, which is obviously much longer
(and less rigid/stressful), in a ‘classical’ mathematical
conference, I would say that the main difference is the
purpose of the talk. On one hand, the aim is to popularise
a complicated scientific subject with simple words intelligible
to everyone. On the other, the goal is to present
the technical details of your work to a scientific audience.
These two contexts have basically nothing in common
but a talk.
How long did you train for the contest?
The writing of the speech and the preparation of the
slides took between 15 and 20 hours, I would say. As far
as the training was concerned, I practised a lot the week
before the contest to be right on time during the compe-
1
My thesis in 180 seconds.
tition. To be honest, I think I repeated my talk at least a
hundred times!”
How useful was it for you to participate in the contest?
It forced me to find a simple way to explain the subject
of my thesis. It was also an excellent way to learn how
to control my voice, rhythm, breath and nerves during a
talk. So it helped me develop my communication skills
and I guess it could be useful for other talks or during an
interview for a job, for example.
What was the biggest difficulty during this contest?
Practising again and again and again! It is hard to stay
focused when you repeat the exact same thing for the
tenth time in an hour, but it had to be done.
What are your feelings about this contest and did you
expect to win? Do you have something to say about the
mass media interest that came after the contest?
It is a very interesting contest because it combines a
show part and a scientific part, which is something rather
unusual. Therefore, as a PhD student, I found it really
challenging from both a personal and a professional
point of view. Honestly, even though I spent a lot of time
preparing for the contest, I didn’t imagine I could win in
Paris. As a matter of fact, when I saw the presentations
of the other finalists, I thought they were so good that I
could relax and have fun during mine because I was sure
I couldn’t do better. So when they called my name for the
winner’s prize, it came as a total surprise! After the contest,
I was astonished by the number of people from the
media asking for interviews; that was something quite
unexpected as well. It is good that they were interested
in this competition because it really helped the popularisation
of the scientific content behind it, which is clearly
one of the major objectives at stake.
What do you think about the difficulties of “popularising”
mathematics in comparison to other subjects?
I think it is really hard to popularise mathematics because
it is often extremely abstract and theoretical. Consequently,
it is more difficult to touch people because
they cannot feel that mathematics could be helpful in
their everyday life. The other candidates did a wonderful
job; I really enjoyed their presentations and their subjects
are of primary importance as well. Nevertheless,
everybody has already heard about AIDS or GMOs, and
knows more or less what is at stake there, but nobody
cares about multifractals or wavelets. These are notions
that cannot be explained in a simple way nor clearly illustrated,
which is the reason why we struggle in making
maths a popular subject. As far as I am concerned,
I am lucky to work in the field of applied mathematics,
which allows me to switch from theory to practice and
50 EMS Newsletter September 2015