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Open Access Update – 25th of May
The campaign to make access to scholarly literature fairer and broader has been picking up steam and moving quite quickly lately, so I thought it would be a good idea to collect the recent news about open access, the Elsevier boycott, and so on, all in one place.
To help you catch up with the story so far, the Guardian have published a (free) roundup of content on the “Academic Spring”.
Aperiodical Round Up 6 – It glides to a stop as it reaches the end of the power stroke
Hello. I’m Christian Perfect and it’s finally here: Aperiodical Round Up 6!
It’s certainly been a while since the last Round Up. You might not even have the words to describe just how long it’s been. Maybe the book Naming Infinity will help.
Caten by David Letellier
[vimeo url=https://vimeo.com/42582062]
Sir Michael Atiyah and Cédric Villani talk at Tate Modern
Sir Michael Atiyah and Cédric Villani, Fields medallists, holders of a frankly embarrassing number of other awards, and highly entertaining speakers, will be having a conversation “to explore mathematics and topology” at Tate Modern, London, on June 2nd, following a screening of the film Au Bonheur des Maths.
All metro systems eventually have the same shape
The BBC and Scientific American report on a paper looking, “in an exploratory manner,” at the limiting shape of metro systems serving large cities. The BBC linked to the actual paper, which is nice of them. The Scientific American article goes into a bit more detail, though.
The authors contend that rather than the shape of subway networks being decided by central planning, which would produce a variety of shapes, the eventual shape of a subway network converges on an emergen structure consisting of a dense core with branches radiating from it.
Modelling obesity
(No, this story is not about plus-size fashion week)
The New York Times has published an interview with Carson C. Chow, an applied mathematician who models the factors causing obesity in the human body. He claims that the main cause of America’s obesity problem is the overproduction of food.
Dr. Chow has written a post on his blog about the interview, adding some more detail about what exactly he does and backing up his claim that availability of food causes obesity. He also points a commentor asking for more scientific details about his research to the obesity category on his blog, where he talks about his papers.
Interview: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity