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News 2008National Academy of Sciences Elects New MembersThe National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has announced the election of 72 new members and 18 foreign associates. Those elected in the mathematical sciences are:
Established in 1863, the NAS is an honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. An NAS press release has a list of all those elected. [Item posted 4/29/08]
American Academy of Arts & Sciences Elects New FellowsThe American Academy of Arts & Sciences has announced its 2008 election of new Fellows. The 190 new Fellows include the following people from the mathematical sciences:
The induction ceremony for this year's class, which also includes U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and guitarist B.B. King, will take place October 11 at the Academy's headquarters in Cambridge, MA. The Academy of Arts & Sciences is an independent policy research center founded in 1780. The full list of the new Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members is in an Academy news release. [Item posted 4/29/08]
Donaldson Wins 2008 Nemmers Prize
Mathematical Sciences in the FY 2009 Budget"Mathematical Sciences in the FY 2009 Budget," by Samuel M. Rankin, III, director of the AMS office in Washington D.C., analyzes the federal support for mathematical sciences research in 2009.
[Item posted 4/23/08] Tao Receives 2008 NSF Waterman Award
Inaugural Conant Lecture by Jeffrey Weeks at WPI Is Online
Thompson and Tits Win 2008 Abel Prize
John Griggs Thompson, Graduate Research Professor, University of Florida, and Jacques Tits, Professor Emeritus, Collège de France, have been awarded the 2008 Abel Prize "for their profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory." In the prize citation, the Abel Committee writes that "Thompson revolutionized the theory of finite groups by proving extraordinarily deep theorems that laid the foundation for the complete classification of finite simple groups, one of the greatest achievements of twentieth century mathematics." In 1963, Thompson and Walter Feit proved that all nonabelian finite simple groups were of even order, work for which they both won the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra from the AMS in 1965. Thompson also won a Fields Medal in 1970. In the Abel citation for Tits, the committee writes that "Tits created a new and highly influential vision of groups as geometric objects. He introduced what is now known as a Tits building, which encodes in geometric terms the algebraic structure of linear groups." The committee noted the link between the two winners' work: "Tits’s geometric approach was essential in the study and realization of the sporadic groups, including the Monster." Tits received the Grand Prix of the French Academy of Sciences in 1976, and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1993. The Abel Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for outstanding scientific work in the field of mathematics. The prize amount is 6,000,000 Norwegian kroner (over US$1,000,000). Thompson and Tits will receive their prize in a ceremony in Oslo on May 20, 2008. See the Abel Prize website for more information about the laureates, their work, and the prize. The work of Thompson and Tits is one of the outstanding accomplishments of modern mathematics. The American Mathematical Society extends its warm congratulations to them on their award of the 2008 Abel Prize. --- James Glimm, AMS President I send my heartiest congratulations to two giants of modern mathematics, John Thompson and Jacques Tits. One cannot imagine two more deserving recipients of the Abel Prize. Their contributions have provided the direction for much of recent research in algebra. As President-elect of the American Mathematical Society, I note with special satisfaction that the award to John Thompson highlights the dedication to excellence in U.S. mathematics, in this instance at the University of Florida. This is a great day for mathematics. Congratulations again to Thompson and Tits. Articles of related interest include: "What is a Building?" by Kenneth Brown (Notices of the AMS, November 2002) and "What is The Monster?" by Richard Borcherds (Notices of the AMS, October 2002). [Item posted 3/27/08] 2007 Putnam ResultsBelow are the team and individual winners of the 68th William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, held last December 1. The mathematics department of the first-place team, Harvard University, receives US$25,000, and each Harvard team member receives $1000. Team winners, in order, with team members in alphabetical order, are:
The Putnam Fellows, the top six individual scorers, each receive $2500. They are, in alphabetical order:
Alison B. Miller, of the first-place Harvard team, is the winner of the Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize, which is awarded to a woman whose performance on the exam is "particularly meritorious," and has a cash award of $1000. This is the third time she has won the prize. The Putnam Competition is for North American undergraduates and is administered by the Mathematical Association of America. More than 3700 students from more than 500 colleges participated in the competition. Problems, solutions, and results from the 2007 exam and from previous exams, are online. [Item posted 3/19/08] Breakthrough in the Study of L-functionsOn March 12, a new mathematical object was revealed during a lecture at the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM). Two researchers from the University of Bristol exhibited the first example of a generic automorphic cusp form for the general linear group of 3 by 3 matrices and its corresponding degree 3 L-function. These L-functions encode deep underlying connections between many different areas of mathematics. The Riemann zeta function, which is an L-function, is at the heart of the Riemann Hypothesis (RH), one of the outstanding open problems in mathematics. RH should be true for every L-function, not just the Riemann zeta function, and during the workshop researchers made preliminary checks that the new L-function satisfies RH. The new L-function was found by Andrew Booker and his student Ce Bian and has generated excitement among number theorists. "The numerical calculation done by Booker and Bian is quite striking," said Peter Sarnak of Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. "I had no idea that it would be feasible. This kind of number-theoretic computation does not just involve using some faster available codes and then number crunch. Rather it demands a deep mastery of the underlying mathematics and then invention of fast techniques and algorithms." Read more about the result on the AIM website. [Item posted 3/14/08] 2008 Intel Science Talent Search AwardsTwo projects involving mathematics finished in the top 10 in the national Intel Science Talent Search. Katherine Rose Banks of Brooklyn, NY finished in fourth place and won a US$25,000 scholarship for her proof of a conjecture that a convex lattice polygon with nine vertices cannot have exactly eight or nine interior lattice points. Banks, a student at Stuyvesant High School, hopes to teach math following her studies at MIT or Cornell University. Philip Mocz of Mililani, HI finished eighth and won a $20,000 scholarship for developing a novel statistical algorithm that he used to discover previously unidentified patterns in the distribution of nearby stars. Mocz, a former contestant in Who Wants to Be a Mathematician, plans to study astronomy, physics, and math in college. The top prize in the competition, a $100,000 scholarship, was won by Shivani Sud of Durham, NC for her research project on colon cancer. The Intel Science Talent Search is owned and administered by the Society for Science & the Public (formerly Science Service) and is sponsored by Intel. Former awardees include six Nobel Prize winners and two Fields Medalists. [Item posted 3/14/08]
Jim Simons Makes $60-million Gift to Launch New Stony Brook Center
AMS Epsilon Fund Makes 2008 AwardsThe AMS has chosen eight summer mathematics programs to receive Epsilon grants for 2008: All Girls/All Math, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Gwendolyn Hines, director; Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics (HCSSiM), Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, David C. Kelly, director; MathPath, University of Vermont, Burlington, George R. Thomas and Stephen Maurer, directors; Michigan Math and Science Scholars Summer Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Stephen Debacker and Patrick Nelson, directors; PROMYS, Boston University, Boston, MA, Glenn Stevens, director; PROTaSM (Puerto Rico Opportunities for Talented Students in Mathematics, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, Luis F. Caceres, director; Ross Mathematics Program, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, Daniel B. Shaprio, director; and Texas State University Honors Summer Math Camp, Texas State University, San Marcos, Max Warshauer, director. [Item posted 2/28/08]
MathSciNet Links to Mathematics Genealogy ProjectMathSciNet now offers direct linking to the Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) through its "Authors" search tab. The results obtained after doing an author search on this page include a drop-down menu (hover the cursor over the author of interest) that includes a link to the author's MGP page. Here users may find information about that author: name of the university which awarded his or her degree, the year in which the degree was awarded, the complete title of the dissertation, the name(s) of the advisor(s), and for some, a list of the mathematician's students. [Item posted 2/27/08]
Math Professor Wins Grammy
Math and Voting in NewsweekIn the February 4 issue of Newsweek, Sharon Begley's "On Science" column is about mathematics and voting. She quotes voting method experts Don Saari (University of California, Irvine) and Steven Brams (New York University), and gives an example of voting preferences to show how the most common voting method, the plurality method, often fails to reflect voters' wishes. See a more detailed summary of this article (and others involving mathematics) in this month's Math in the Media. The theme of this year's Mathematics Awareness Month (April) is "Mathematics and Voting." Test three methods by voting on ballots listing eight of the Democratic and Republican candidates (not all of whom are still campaigning) at the Mathematics Awareness Month website. [Item posted 2/1/08]
Deligne, Griffiths, and Mumford Share 2008 Wolf PrizePierre Deligne and Phillip Griffiths, both of the Institute for Advanced Study, and David Mumford of Brown University, will share the 2008 Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics. Deligne was honored "for his work on mixed Hodge theory, the Weil conjectures, the Riemann-Hilbert correspondence, and for his contributions to arithmetic," Griffiths "for his work on variations of Hodge structures; the theory of periods of abelian integrals; and for his contributions to complex differential geometry," and Mumford "for his work on algebraic surfaces; on geometric invariant theory; and for laying the foundations of the modern algebraic theory of moduli of curves and theta functions." The three will share the US$100,000 award. More information about the prize is on the Wolf Foundation website. [Item posted 1/22/08]
Kontsevich and Witten Receive 2008 Crafoord Prize
A press release from the Academy stated that Kontsevich and Witten "have used the methodology of physics to develop a revolutionary new mathematics intended for the study of various types of geometrical objects. Their work is not only of great interest in the discipline of mathematics but may also find applications in totally different areas. Its results are of considerable value for physics and research into the fundamental laws of nature. According to string theory, which is an ambitious attempt to formulate a theory for all the natural forces, the smallest particles of which the Universe is composed are vibrating strings. This theory predicts the existence of additional dimensions and requires very advanced mathematics. The laureates have resolved several important mathematical problems related to string theory and have in this way paved the way for its further development." The Academy has also put on the web a popular article describing their work. [Item posted 1/17/08] |
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