Here’s a round-up of a few news items from the last couple of months not otherwise covered on the site.
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Aperiodical News Roundup – November & December 2024
Here’s a round-up of some news stories from the last two months of 2024, (mostly) not otherwise covered here on the Aperiodical.
Maths Research
At the start of December, John Carlos Baez shared on Mathstodon that the moving sofa problem may have been solved – the question of the largest possible shape you can fit around a 2D corner. For many years, a shape called Gerver’s sofa has been thought to be optimal, but an ArXiV paper from 29th November claims to have proved it is. More context in this blog post by Dan Romnik.
Depending on what you consider to be maths news, there were also reports that mathematicians have discovered a new type of cardinal numbers and a new kind of infinity.
And depending on what you consider to be good news, Terry Tao has also announced the creation of Renaissance Philanthropy and XTX Markets’ AI for Math fund, supporting projects that apply AI and machine learning to mathematics, with a focus on automated theorem proving. The deadline for initial expressions of interest is Jan 10, 2025.
Awards and Appointments
Computer algebra system PARI/GP has been awarded a CNRS prize “Prix science ouverte du logiciel libre de la recherche” (Open Science Awards for Free Software for Research). The awards highlight exceptional or very promising achievements, which can inspire the scientific community as well as society as a whole. An estimated user community of 25,000 people use PARI/GP regularly for research and hobbyist number theory. (via Rémi Eismann on SeqFan)
The other big news from last December was Hannah Fry’s appointment as Cambridge’s new Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics. She joined the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) on 1st January, and the role will involve communicating to diverse audiences, including with people not previously interested in maths. Fry follows in the footsteps of the late John Barrow, who informally took on the same role for much of his distinguished career.
“Communication is not an optional extra: if you are creating something that is used by, or interacts with members of the public or the world in general, then I think it’s genuinely your moral duty to engage the people affected by it. I’d love to build and grow a community around excellence in mathematical communication at Cambridge – so that we’re really researching the best possible methods to communicate with people.”
– Hannah Fry
Other news
From now until 11th February, Young Researcher applications for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum 2025 are open to any undergraduate/pre-master, PhD or PostDoc researchers who would like to join the highest level of mathematical laureates alongside hundreds of other researchers in maths and computer science for a week of talks, workshops and networking in the beautiful city of Heidelberg in September.
Aperiodical News Roundup – October 2024
Here’s a roundup of some of the maths-related news from this month we didn’t otherwise cover here!
Aperiodical News Roundup – September 2024
Here’s a round-up of mathematical news stories from last month.
Aperiodical News Roundup – August 2024
Here’s a quick round-up of some news stories from this month.
Awards
The Royal Society has announced its award winners for 2024, which include mathematicians Ingrid Daubechies (Bakerian Medal/lecture for the physical sciences), Hannah Fry (David Attenborough Award/lecture for public engagement) and Philip Maini (Sylvester medal for mathematical research).
And the joint IMA/LMS Christopher Zeeman Medal for 2024 has been awarded to Brady Haran for his work in communicating mathematics via the Numberphile channel on YouTube.
Other news
The Protect Pure Maths campaign group has relaunched as the Campaign for Mathematical Sciences, encompassing a broader remit to promote and support mathematical activity in the UK.
In research news, an elliptic curve with rank at least 29 has been found by researchers Noam Elkies and Zev Klagsbrun. The previous record was rank ≥28, found by Elkies in 2006. (via Robin Houston)
\[y2 + xy = x3 – 27006183241630922218434652145297453784768054621836357954737385x + 55258058551342376475736699591118191821521067032535079608372404779149413277716173425636721497\]
Pierre Cartier, mathematician and Bourbaki member, has died aged 92.
Aperiodical News Roundup – June/July 2024
Here’s a round-up of some news we didn’t cover on the Aperiodical in the last couple of months.
Aperiodical News Roundup – May 2024
Here’s a round-up of some of the mathematical news we saw last month.
Maths News
Thomas Hales and Koundinya Vajjha have claimed a proof of Mahler’s first conjecture, that the most unpackable centrally symmetric convex disk in the plane is a smoothed polygon. (via Greg Egan)
There’s also a been a proof of the geometric Langlands conjecture published, as outlined in this New Scientist article.
Zhouli Xu has claimed a proof of the Kervaire invariant one problem in dimension 126. (via Kyle Ormsby)
And finally, Hidetoshi Mino has counted all the magic squares of order 6. Up to rotations and reflections, there are 17,753,889,197,660,635,632. (via Walter Trump)
Awards and Appointments
The inaugural Jean-Pierre Demailly Prize for Open Science in Mathematics has been awarded to zbMath Open, “for its broad scope, recent policy changes, and commitment to accessibility and sustainability”. (via the European Mathematical Society)
It’s been announced that the first President of the newly-formed Academy for the Mathematical Sciences (AcadMathSci) will be Professor Alison Etheridge OBE FRS, a professor in Probability at the University of Oxford, and a world expert on stochastic processes and their applications. She will take up the role on 17 June 2024.
The Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences 2024 has been awarded to Peter Sarnak, “for his development of the arithmetic theory of thin groups and the affine sieve, by bringing together number theory, analysis, combinatorics, dynamics, geometry and spectral theory.” (via Paysages Mathématiques)
Other News
“Des chiffres et des lettres”, the French gameshow on which Countdown is based, has been cancelled after more than 50 years. (via Sarah Dal)
The UK Government has issued a call for £6m funding to set up a National Academy focused on Mathematical Sciences (NAM). Confusingly, this isn’t the same thing as the fledgling Academy for the Mathematical Sciences (AcadMathSci), though AcadMathSci may well bid to become the NAM. Clear?
And sadly, award-winning mathematician and co-founder of the Simons Foundation Jim Simons has died. (via Alberto Ramos)