Don Quixote
September 29, 2014 is the 467th birthday of Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, whose immortal Don Quixote is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of literature in any language. In fact, in 2002 the Norwegian Book Club named Don Quixote as “best literary work ever written” in their listing of the world’s 100 greatest books.
Don Quixote describes the exploits the protagonist Alonso Quixano, a semi-retired Spanish gentleman who got so carried away with his readings of chivalry and knights-errant exploits that he adopted the name Don Quixote, donned some old armor, named a friend as
Continue reading Tilting at windmills
The latest IPCC report
The latest draft edition of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report includes some rather stark language:
Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.
Among the potential sources of havoc are rising sea levels, more frequent extreme temperatures, flooding, drought, harm to marine life and potentially violent conflicts arising from the changing agricultural and meteorological environment.
Skeptics of the scientific consensus have made great hay over the fact
Continue reading To frack or not to frack: That’s not the question
“Experimental mathematics” has emerged in the past 25 years or so to become a competing paradigm for research in the mathematical sciences. An exciting workshop entitled Challenges in 21st Century Experimental Mathematical Computation was held at the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM), July 21-25, 2014, which explored emerging challenges of experimental mathematics in the rapidly changing era of modern computer technology. This report summarizes the workshop findings (without mentioning any of the research presentations).
While several more precise definitions have been offered for “experimental mathematics,” we used the informal one given in the book The Computer
Continue reading Opportunities and challenges in experimental mathematics
Introduction
On 10 August 2014, a team led by Thomas Hales of the University of Pittsburgh, USA, announced that their decade-long effort to construct a computer-verified formal proof of the Kepler conjecture was now complete. The project was known as Flyspeck, a rough acronym for “Formal Proof of Kepler.”
The Kepler conjecture is the assertion that the simple scheme of stacking oranges typically seen in a supermarket has the highest possible average density, namely pi/(3 sqrt(2)) = 0.740480489…, for any possible arrangement, regular or irregular. It is named after 17th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler, who first proposed that planets orbited in
Continue reading Formal proof completed for Kepler’s conjecture on sphere packing
On 13 August 2014, at the quadrennial meeting of the International Congress of Mathematicians, this year held in Seoul, Korea, the four winners of the 2014 Fields Medals were announced by the International Mathematics Union, which administers the awards.
This year’s awardees are:
Artur Avila, a Brazilian mathematician (the first Brazilian mathematician to win the prize) has done notable research in the study of chaos theory and dynamical systems. These areas seek to understand the behavior of systems that evolve over time in which very small changes in the initial conditions can lead to wildly varying outcomes. One well-known example
Continue reading 2014 Fields Medals announced
On 7 July 2014, the New York Times ran a feature story on James H. Simons, the well-known geometer, hedge fund founder, billionaire and philanthropist. Here are some of the fascinating facts uncovered in the Times story and elsewhere:
Simons was born in 1938 in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of a shoe factory owner. Simons graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in three years, then received his Ph.D. in mathematics from U.C. Berkeley in three more years, finishing at the age of 23. Simons worked on cryptographic mathematics at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Princeton, New Jersey, but
Continue reading New York Times features story on James Simons
June 23, 2014 was a nice day for mathematicians Simon Donaldson, Maxim Kontsevich, Jacob Lurie, Terence Tao and Richard Taylor. They were informed that they will be receiving the inaugural Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics, each with a cash award of USD$3,000,000.
The Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics complement the Breakthrough Prizes in Fundamental Physics, which were inaugurated in 2012, and the Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences, which were inaugurated in 2013.
In future years, there will be one award in mathematics, one award in physics, and six in life sciences. Each of the eight annual awardees will receive USD$3,000,000, as
Continue reading Inaugural Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics announced
Background
Intellectual property law is complex and varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but, roughly speaking, creative works can be copyrighted, while inventions and processes can be patented. In each case the intention is to protect the value of the owner’s work or possession.
For the most part mathematics is excluded by the Berne convention of the World Intellectual Property Organization WIPO. An unusual exception was the successful patenting of Gray codes in 1953. More usual was the carefully timed Pi Day 2012 dismissal by a US judge of a copyright infringement suit regarding Pi, since “Pi is a
Continue reading Can Pi be trademarked?
One of the present bloggers (Jonathan M. Borwein) has published an article in The Conversation on the proposed cuts to scientific research in the latest Australian federal budget. While some medical research has been spared, other sectors, notably basic science, are being cut severely.
The cuts include AUS$74 million cuts to the Australian Research Council (ARC), AUS$80 million cuts to the Cooperative Research Center (CRC) program, AUS$111 million cuts to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and AUS$120 million cuts to the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DSTO).
Borwein observes that even if one grants that medical research
Continue reading Borwein on the Australian scientific research budget
Yakov Sinai, Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University since 1993, has been awarded the 2014 Abel Prize for his groundbreaking research in dynamical systems, ergodic theory and mathematical physics. A stipend of approximately USD $1,000,000 accompanies the prize, which is often referred to as the “Nobel Prize” of mathematics.
The Abel Prize is named after Niels Henrik Abel, a Norwegian mathematician of the early 19th century who laid the foundation for group theory. “Abelian groups” are named after Abel. The awarding of the Abel Prize to Sinai strikes close to home for one of the present bloggers (DHB), since ergodic
Continue reading Sinai receives 2014 Abel Prize
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