|
|
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
In a dramatic announcement on March 16, 2014, a team of astronomers led by John Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said that they have detected gravitational waves, confirming predictions made by mathematical physicists Alan Guth, Andrei Linde and others in the 1970s and 1980s.
Gravitational waves from inflation, with their distinctive twisting pattern, in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation.
MIT physicist/cosmologist Max Tegmark assessed the discovery in these terms: “I think that if this stays true, it will go down as one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science.”
Similarly, Marc Kamionkowski
Continue reading Gravitational waves confirm mathematical prediction of inflationary big bang
Introduction
In a 2004 review in Science of Searle’s Mind a Brief Introduction, neuro-scientist Christof Koch wrote
Whether we scientists are inspired, bored, or infuriated by philosophy, all our theorizing and experimentation depends on particular philosophical background assumptions. This hidden influence is an acute embarrassment to many researchers, and it is therefore not often acknowledged. Such fundamental notions as reality, space, time, and causality–notions found at the core of the scientific enterprise–all rely on particular metaphysical assumptions about the world.
This may seem self-evident, and was regarded as important by Einstein, Bohr and the founders of quantum theory a century
Continue reading Is philosophy needed in mathematics and science?
A special session “Software, Design and Practice in Random Walks” has been scheduled for the upcoming Fourth international Congress on Mathematical Software (ICMS2014), to be held in Seoul, August 5-9, 2014.
This session will examine interactions between software use/design and random walk research, in a broad sense. More details, including abstract submission guidelines, can be found at ICMS website.
Plenary speakers for the conference include:
Jonathan Borwein (one of the present bloggers), University of Newcastle, Australia. Bruno Buchberger, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria. Wolfram Decker, Technische Universitat Kaiserslautern, Germany. Andrew Sommese, University of Notre Dame, USA. Lloyd Trefethen,
Continue reading Upcoming ICMS special session on random walks
Pi is very old
The number pi = 3.14159265358979323846… is arguably the only mathematical topic from very early history that is still being researched today. The Babylonians used the approximation pi ≈ 3. The Egyptian Rhind Papyrus, dated roughly 1650 BCE, suggests pi = 256/81 = 3.16049…. Early Indian mathematicians believed pi = √10 = 3.162277… Archimedes, in the first mathematically rigorous calculation, employed a clever iterative construction of inscribed and circumscribed polygons to able to establish that 3 < 10/71 = 3.14084... < pi < 3 1/7 = 3.14285... This amazing work, done without trigonometry or floating
Continue reading Pi day 3.14 (14)
|
|