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At the upcoming meeting of the Australian Mathematical Society, Prof. Jonathan Borwein will give a plenary talk on the mathematics of uniform random walks. This is in addition to the public lecture The Life of Pi.
Abstract:
Following Pearson in 1905, we study the expected distance of a two-dimensional walk in the plane with n unit steps in random directions — what Pearson called a random walk or a “ramble”. While the statistics and large n behaviour are well understood, the precise behaviour of the first few steps is quite remarkable and less tractable. Series evaluations and recursions are obtained
Continue reading Borwein to give talk on the mathematics of uniform random walks
The 2010 meeting of the International Mathematical Union is being held in Hyderabad, India. At this meeting, Ingrid Daubechies (of wavelet fame) was appointed President, the first woman ever afforded than honor. Also at this meeting the Fields Medal, long regarded as the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize, was awarded to four mathematicians:
Elon Lindenstrauss, of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, received the award for “far-reaching advances in ergodic theory,” namely the study of random processes and the statistical behavior of dynamical systems. Lindenstrauss has achieved progress in what is known as the Littlewood conjecture. Ngô Bo Châu, of Université
Continue reading Fields Medals awarded
In honor of Jonathan Borwein’s 60th birthday in May 2011, a workshop on “Computational and Analytical Mathematics” will be held at the IRMACS Center of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC, Canada.
Here is a synopsis of the upcoming meeting, taken from SFU conference announcement:
Having authored more than a dozen books and more than 300 publications, Jonathan Borwein is one of the most productive Canadian mathematicians ever. His research spans pure, applied, and computational mathematics as well as high performance computing. His research continues to have enormous impact: MathSciNet lists more than 2500 citations by more than 1250 authors,
Continue reading Workshop to honor Jonathan Borwein’s 60th birthday
On 6 August 2010, Vinay Deolalikar, a mathematician working at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alo, California, distributed a note to some colleagues claiming that he had solved the “P not NP” problem, a most famous and potentially far-reaching question at the nexus of mathematics and computer science. Deolalikar’s manuscript is available here: Deolalikar paper.
The Clay Mathematics Institute describes this problem as follows (Clay):
Suppose that you are organizing housing accommodations for a group of four hundred university students. Space is limited and only one hundred of the students will receive places in the dormitory. To complicate matters,
Continue reading Has the “P not NP” problem been solved?
I am a great fan of the intelligent use of technology. Indeed, I like David Bailey have spent a great deal of my career advocating just such use. The story below is an unexaggerated description of one of the most frustrating encounters I have ever had with a major company. I am left wondering whether Telstra has ever learned what it means to be a private company; to offer genuine service, honest quality assurance, and knowledgeable assistance; to use modern databases or train competent assistants. There again, when the main competition in Oz is Optus what choice does a consumer
Continue reading Why I love my Telco
Prof. Jonathan Borwein of the University of Newcastle, Australia, will give the “public lecture” at the upcoming meeting of the Australian Mathematical Society on “The life of Pi.” Here are some details: Announcement
Abstract: The desire to understand pi, the challenge, and originally the need, to calculate ever more accurate values of pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, has captured mathematicians——great and less great——for many many centuries and, especially recently, pi has provided compelling examples of computational mathematics. Pi, uniquely in mathematics, is pervasive in popular culture and the popular imagination. In this lecture
Continue reading Borwein to present lecture on “The life of Pi”
Online article
Details of methods used
Synopsis:
A pair of Japanese and US computer whizzes claim to have calculated pi to five trillion decimal places — a number which if verified eclipses the previous record set by a French software engineer.
“We believe our achievement sets a new record,” Japanese system engineer Shigeru Kondo said, adding that the Frenchman’s calculation to nearly 2.7 trillion places was believed to be the previous record. …
It took 90 days to calculate pi at Kondo’s home using a desktop computer with 20 external hard disks. It ran on the operating system Windows
Continue reading Japanese and U.S. researchers compute pi to 5 trillion places
The notion that humans often take actions and pursue goals due to subconscious desires and instincts dates back to Sigmund Freud, who suggested, among other things, that repressed sexual urges underlay some human behavior. Freud’s theories were later judged unreliable and largely nonfalsifiable. In any event, until recently it was assumed that conscious decisions are essential for the mental processes involved in setting and pursuing a goal. Indeed, goal pursuit has been considered nearly synonymous with conscious thought.
But a number of recent studies suggest otherwise. In one of the first studies of this sort, some U.S. students were seated
Continue reading Latest research indicates we unconsciously pursue goals
Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman announced today that he is rejecting the $1 million Clay Mathematics Institute prize for his recent solution of the Poincare conjecture. Perelman has been quoted saying he believes his contribution in proving the conjecture was no greater than that of a U.S. mathematician named Richard Hamilton, who first suggested an approach that Perelman utilized in his solution. He also indicated that his great dislike for the “organized mathematical community” was a large factor.
For more details see: AP News report | Washington Post report | New York Times report | MAA report. A fascinating and quite
Continue reading Perelman rejects $1 million Clay award
Many readers will be familiar with the Jeopardy! television show, which is the most popular quiz show in North America. One of the present bloggers confesses to watching it almost every weekday evening when not on travel (and hardly any other television program). The other blogger is also a keen armchair contestant.
In this show, clues are presented on a video screen to the three contestants, and after Canadian host Alex Trebek completes reading the clue, contestants must first ring in with a handheld button. The first contestant to ring in then has five seconds to provide the answer, which
Continue reading IBM’s “Watson” to compete against Jeopardy champs
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