The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences held the graduation dinner for the class of 2009 at the Muizenberg Pavilion on June 25, 2009. Present were Vice-Chancellors from three of Cape Town’s Universities, and the Kenyan Ambassador Tom Amolo.

I was invited to attend this years graduation of the 2009 AIMS postgraduate diploma on what was forecast to be a stormy day, but it cleared up in time. I have blogged about AIMS before - on the opening of their Research Centre.

What is exciting about Cosmology today is how much we do not know. The observable universe - baryonic matter we are fairly sure comprises only a few percent of the total mass of the universe. The rest is a mystery, but mainstream theories split it between Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

I work at the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), and we are blessed with some great visiting lecturers, and I have followed the courses on Cosmology and Quantum Mechanics with interest. I have written about AIMS and their new research centre before.

Abuja, Nigeria, the capital city, suffers from lack of infrastructure. Potholes, no landlines, power cuts every day.

Nigeria as a tourist

In 1992 as a tourist on an overland truck, I travelled through Nigeria from the Cameroon border in the north, down through the city of Kano and its magnificent central market, to the bustling and wild city of Lagos. In Nigeria “Benin” is a western province - the sleepy francophone country to the west is pronounced differently and must be identified as the republic of benin.

On May 11, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences opened its Research Centre. Present were a host of dignitaries, led by Stephen Hawking, Michael Griffin, the current administrator of NASA, and Nobel prize-winners David Gross and George Smoot. A lineup indeed.

I have posted about AIMS before. The bread-and-butter of AIMS is a post-graduate diploma course for African Mathematicians. This broadens the role of the institute to include research. AIMS is set by the sea in a lovely location in Muizenberg, and is the brainchild of Neil Turok, who last year won a TED prize for this and his work on cosmology. TED listens to wishes from its winners - Neil’s declared wish is that the next Einstein come from Africa.

I have been working at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences since December 2006. It is a pleasant work environment, the work I do has direct applicability to the work I do withWizzy, and I get to listen to some really great lecturers from universities around the world. I have taken an interest in Cosmology and Quantum mechanics, a field that has changed so drastically in the last 10 years that I can happily forget most of what I knew before ..