Recently we reported that Eva Gallarda and Carl Cowen had announced they had a proof of the invariant subspace conjecture for Hilbert spaces.
Well, yesterday they announced at the blog Café Matemático that there was a problem with their proof:
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- how statistics impacts individual lives, improves society, or in general makes the world more a better place
- how statistical thinking can be brought to bear on important issues of our day
- interesting careers in statistics (tell the world why your job in statistics is a great job, or why it is interesting and fun to be a statistician)
International Year of Statistics Video Contest
In case you’d already forgotten, 2013 is the International Year of Statistics (I had; turns out Katie told us about it just after the New Year). One of the many activities going on is a video contest sponsored by the publishers Wiley.
Take it away, Wiley!
We invite videos of four minutes in length or less that illustrate
Prizes of $250 to $1000 will be awarded for the best videos, with special prizes for “the best videos by a person or persons 18 years of age or less and the best non-English language videos”.
Submissions must be received by February the 28th, so get rolling.
More information
BSA STEM Poster Competition – Mission to Mars
Following on from the Maths Careers website’s ‘Mathematics of Planet Earth’ poster competition, I’m going on the assumptions that 1. everyone loves poster competitions, and 2. if they’re related somehow to a particular planet, that’s even better.
The Manchester branch of the British Science Association is running a competition to design a poster around a theoretical upcoming manned mission to Mars, describing some science that solves a problem the Mars lander might face. I think we should encourage people to enter mathematics-based posters (firmly wedging the M in STEM).
How much equipment would they need to carry, and how much would it weigh, and how much fuel would they therefore need? How does the addition of human cargo affect the landing trajectory? And what can the crew possibly use to keep themselves occupied on the long journey except some maths puzzles you’ve invented?
The competition is aimed at school years 7-9 (ages 11-14), and while it’s being run by the Manchester branch, nothing on the website says you have to be based in Manchester to enter.
More information
Éditions Hermann donates its Bourbaki archives to the Bibliothèque nationale de France
A collection of material pertaining to Nicolas Bourbaki, author of the famous Elements of Mathematics, has been donated to the French national library by his publisher, éditions Hermann. Bourbaki set out to reframe modern maths in terms of set theory, to give the subject a coherence that would lead to more rigour and cross-application of results.
The donated material consists of “original texts, corrected proofs of the Elements of Mathematics, as well as various items related to the publication of the books including catalogues, press releases, contemporary journal articles on Bourbaki, and letters.”
More information (all in French)
Les éditions Hermann font don d’archives Nicolas Bourbaki à la Bibliothèque nationale de France – (PDF) press release from the BNF and Hermann.
Les Archives Bourbaki à la BNF – potted history of Bourbaki in Libération.
Nicolas Bourbaki fait son entrée à la BNF! – hour-long radio programme on France Culture, including contributions from Pierre Cartier, former avatar of Bourbaki, and Guillaume Fau, curator of manuscripts at the BNF.
Nicolas Bourbaki entry on MacTutor (in English)
Winners announced: Maths Careers Maths of Planet Earth 2013 Poster Competition
You may remember that the Maths Careers website ran a poster competition on the theme Maths of Planet Earth. We reported on this back in November, and said:
The IMA’s Maths Careers campaign runs a yearly competition for posters illustrating applications of maths. Entry for the 2012/13 competition has opened, and it’s on the theme of the planet Earth, to join in with the Mathematics of Planet Earth year 2013. UK students between the ages of 11 and 19 are invited to submit posters about “A planet to discover”, “A planet supporting life”, “A planet organised by humans” or “A planet at risk“.
That post also reported that the deadline was the birthday of our very own Christian Perfect, no doubt as part of the world-wide Christiansmas celebrations. Now, in the afterglow of that momentous day, the winners have been announced.
View the winning posters: Maths Careers Poster Competition 2012 / 2013. Congratulations to all the winners!
News in brie(f)
“What’s that, boss?”
“I said, look at this article on a conference about how maths is applied and write something full of puns.”
“Cheesy puns?”
“Attaboy.”
LMS Women in Mathematics Day
The London Mathematical Society has announced that this year’s Women In Mathematics Day will take place on April the 18th and 19th at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge. It’s free for students and £5 on the door for everyone else.
The event provides an opportunity to meet and talk with women who are active and successful in mathematics. While this is an occasion particularly for women active in mathematics to get together, men are certainly not excluded from this event.
The deadline for poster and talk submissions is March 15th 2013 (contact Beatrice Pelloni); if you’d like to register as a delegate, get in touch with Katy Henderson by April 1st 2013.
More details:
Women in Mathematics Day event page at the LMS