Prof. Jonathan of the University of Newcastle in Australia (and one of the co-bloggers of this site) has been interviewed in International Innovation, a publication devoted to be a leading portal for scientific dissemination. Borwein’s interview, and the accompanying discussion of experimental mathematics, are available here.
Here are a few excerpts:
Borwein describes experimental applied mathematics:
Experimental applied mathematics comprises the use of modern computing technology as an active agent of research for purposes of gaining insight and intuition, discovering new patterns and relationships, testing and conjectures, and confirming analytically derived results, much in the same spirit that laboratory experimentation
Continue reading Borwein interviewed in International Innovation
Lattice Sums: Then and Now (Authors’ Website) Volume 150 of Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications J. M. Borwein, University of Newcastle, New South Wales M. L. Glasser, Clarkson University, New York R. C. McPhedran, University of Sydney J. G. Wan, Singapore University of Technology and Design I. J. Zucker, Kings College, London PUBLISHED: August 1 2013 FORMAT: Hardback ISBN: 9781107039902
From the CUP website: The study of lattice sums began when early investigators wanted to go from mechanical properties of crystals to the properties of the atoms and ions from which they were built (the literature of Madelung’s
Continue reading Lattice Sums: Then and Now
The present authors, together with Andrew Mattingly and Glenn Wightwick of IBM Australia, have published a paper on the computation of pi^2 and Catalan’s constant in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. The article is featured on the cover of the August 2013 issue.
This paper describes the computation of mathematical objects (digits of pi^2 and Catalan’s constant) that until a few years ago were widely believed in the mathematical community to be forever beyond the reach of human reasoning or calculation. In particular, the paper describes the computation of:
Base-64 digits of pi^2 beginning at position 10 trillion.
Continue reading New paper in AMS Notices on computation of pi^2 and Catalan’s constant
The 1996 Sokal hoax
Readers may be aware of the 1996 “Sokal hoax,” wherein Alan Sokal, a physicist at New York University, wrote a parody of a postmodern science article, entitled Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity, and submitted it to Social Text, a prominent journal in the postmodern studies field. The article was filled with page after page of erudite-sounding nonsense, political rhetoric, irrelevant references to arcane scientific concepts and approving quotations from leading postmodern science scholars. In spite of its severe flaws, the article was not only accepted for the journal, but it appeared
Continue reading Brown, Sokal and Friedman on nonsense in psychology
A bumper sticker sometimes seen on automobiles in North America and elsewhere proclaims, “I may be slow, but I’m ahead of you.” Similarly, perhaps the only positive note that can be sounded on a recent Australian science literacy survey is that the results are somewhat better than a similar study done in the U.S.A.
Results of science literacy survey
The survey, which is described in detail at the Australian Academy of Science website, asked a handful of questions on basic science. It is similar to a survey conducted in Australia in 2010, and is based on a 2009 survey conducted
Continue reading Getting it wrong: Australian science literacy hits new low
The scientific world is suffering through a rash of examples of the sad consequences of the “hype now, hide later” approach to scientific news.
Stem cell breakthrough?
On 15 May 2013, a team of researchers from Portland, Oregon, Boston, Massachusetts, Thailand and South Korea announced in the journal Cell that they had succeeded in producing personalized human embryonic stem cells, which in theory could be used to produce any component of a human body. Other researchers in the field praised the work. Dieter Egli of the New York Stem Cell Foundation described the work as “fantastic.”
The media coverage has
Continue reading Hype now, hide later: No way to do scientific research
During the past two weeks, two truly major results were announced in the realm of (analytic) number theory, namely the mathematics of integers in general and of prime numbers in particular. Prime numbers, i.e., 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23 … are the building blocks of arithmetic and have been studied seriously since before the time of Euclid (c. 300 BCE), when it was already proven that the primes were infinite in number.
Problems about prime numbers are fundamental and often intractible. In his article “The first 50 million prime numbers” in the Mathematical Intelligencer (1977), Don
Continue reading Two breakthrough results in number theory
Frank W.J. Olver died in Rockville, Maryland, on April 23, 2013, at the age of 88. He was a world-renowned applied mathematician and one of the most widely recognized contemporary scholars in the mathematical field of special functions.
Born in Croydon, England, Olver received B.Sc, M.SC and D.SC degrees in mathematics from the University of London in 1945, 1948 and 1961. During this period he was a founding member of the Mathematics Division and became Head of the Numerical Methods Section at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, U.K.
At the invitation of Milton Abramowitz, Olver came to the
Continue reading Frank W.J. Olver (1924-2013)
Niels Henrik Abel
On the segment of Jeopardy! (the popular North American quiz show with a long-time Canadian host that is watched around the English speaking world) that aired on 9 May 2013, as part of the Jeopardy! College Tournament, featured a category “The Abel Prize.”
As the first clue of the five explained, the Abel Prize, founded in 2003, is considered to be the “Nobel Prize” of mathematics.
The Abel prize is structured in much the same way as the Nobel prizes and has already honored some of the most distinguished mathematicians of our time.
As Wikipedia
Continue reading The Abel Prize on Jeopardy!
The Australian government’s ironic and perverse decision to better fund schools at the expense of already-promised university funding would make a good Yes, Prime Minister episode. Sadly such colossal stupidity is no laughing matter.
The UK’s coalition government seems similarly intent on damaging its University sector with huge increases in fees. In California, the best state University system in the world (including Berkeley and UCLA) has been severely strained with budget cuts.
The U.S. Congress managed to pass a measure to finance the US federal government through the end of the fiscal year. But the Senate version included an amendment
Continue reading The mad politics of science funding
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