The Queen does maths!
I can't believe I just found out about this today. A year ago, there was model theory workshop at the Newton Institute in Cambridge, England. I spent 5 months there, but missed the final month because I went to San Antonio for the summer. Apparently, if I had stayed just a few weeks more, I would have been able to see royalty. The Queen of England and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Newton Institute as part of her tour of Cambridge during Kings College's fifth centennial. They walked right in on a model theory lecture and in the clip you can see some familiar people in the closest row to the camera: Rahim Moosa, Tom Scanlon, Bjorn Poonen, and at the far right, Pietro dello Stritto, my officemate in Lyon. I also managed to pick out Alice, John G, Chatzidakis and maybe Newelski.
The clip's actually pretty funny in the formality of it all. The Duke walks in and the first thing he says is, "What is it this morning, addition or subtraction?" Then he goes to Rahim and asks him what year he is. They embarassedly say that it's not a classroom but a research presentation and that they're actually professors. Then the Duke realizes that these chit-chat questions aren't really working out and so he and the Queen just walk on through and examine the grounds. But there's no real way back out except through the lecture room, so later on in the talk they have to quickly walk through again and everyone has to stand and pay their respects. So silly.
The clip's actually pretty funny in the formality of it all. The Duke walks in and the first thing he says is, "What is it this morning, addition or subtraction?" Then he goes to Rahim and asks him what year he is. They embarassedly say that it's not a classroom but a research presentation and that they're actually professors. Then the Duke realizes that these chit-chat questions aren't really working out and so he and the Queen just walk on through and examine the grounds. But there's no real way back out except through the lecture room, so later on in the talk they have to quickly walk through again and everyone has to stand and pay their respects. So silly.