Here’s a round-up of some news we didn’t cover on the Aperiodical in the last couple of months.
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- Philippa Bonay, Director, Operations, Office for National Statistics. Appointed OBE for Public and Charitable Services.
- Anne Davis, Professor of Mathematical Physics, University of Cambridge. Appointed OBE for services to Higher Education and to Scientific Research.
- Paul Fannon, Fellow, Christ’s College, Cambridge, and Volunteer, United Kingdom Mathematics Trust. Appointed OBE for services to Education.
- Ian Hall, Professor of Mathematical Epidemiology and Statistics, University of Manchester and Senior Principal Modeller, UK Health Security Agency. Appointed OBE for services to Public Health, to Epidemiology and to Adult Social Care, particularly during Covid-19.
- David Marshall, Lately Director of Census, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (now Northern Ireland chief electoral officer). Appointed OBE for services to Official Statistics and Census-taking in Northern Ireland.
- Bruno Reddy, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Maths Circle, Ampthill, Bedfordshire, and creator of Times Tables Rock Stars. Appointed OBE for services to Education.
- Sam Rose, Deputy Director, Data and Analysis Division, Department for Transport. Appointed OBE for services to Advanced Analytics
- Matthew Woollard, Professor of Data Policy and Governance, UK Data Archive, University of Essex. Appointed OBE for services to Data Science
- George McMath, Lately Deputy Principal, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Northern Ireland Civil Service. Appointed MBE for services to the Northern Ireland Census.
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)
Particularly mathematical Birthday Honours 2024
The UK Government have announced the new set of King’s Birthday Honours. Here’s our selection of particularly mathematical entries for this year. If you spot any more, let us know in the comments and we’ll add to the list.
Get the full list from gov.uk. Spot anyone we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments.
Aperiodical News Roundup – March/April 2024
Here’s a round-up of mathematical news from the last couple of months.
Awards
The 2024 Abel Prize has been awarded to Michel Talagrand, “for his groundbreaking contributions to probability theory and functional analysis, with outstanding applications in mathematical physics and statistics.”
This year’s Turing Award has been given to Avi Wigderson, “for foundational contributions to the theory of computation, including reshaping our understanding of the role of randomness in computation, and for his decades of intellectual leadership in theoretical computer science.” Widgerson is a previous recipient of the Abel Prize.
Mathematical Discoveries
Nature magazine reports the discovery of a natural metabolic enzyme capable of forming Sierpiński triangles. Fractals are everywhere!
Quine’s New Foundations for set theory, in which the axiom of choice is false, has been formally proved in Lean to be consistent (PDF).
Another unreasonably effective application of maths: knot theory can be used to reveal points where spacecraft can switch between intersecting orbits using minimal fuel.
Other news
And finally, there have unfortunately been two deaths in maths education. First, maths education stalwart and generally lovely person Sue de Pomerai has died. Sue worked at MEI, FMSP and AMSP, and made a huge contribution to maths promotion in the UK. Also Hugh Burkhardt, pioneering mathematics education researcher and former Director of the Shell Centre for Mathematical Education.
Podcasting about: It’s Not Just Numbers podcast
In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical podcasts from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the podcast and asking them about what they do.
We spoke to Marcello Seri and Marit van Straaten from the Bernoulli Institute at the University of Groningen, about their podcast, It’s Not Just Numbers.
Podcasting about: Chalkboard Ultra podcast
In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical podcasts from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the podcast and asking them about what they do.
We spoke to Louie and Sam, two students at Durham University, who host a podcast there for their uni’s student radio station Purple Radio.
Finite Group: update and free livestream
A few months ago a group of us launched a membership club, The Finite Group, which you can join!
A big update is the lineup — your membership now supports the work of and gives you access to content from mathematician and TikTok star Ayliean MacDonald, as well as Chalkdust’s Matthew Scroggs and The Aperiodical’s Katie Steckles and me. Membership gives you access to a chat community and monthly livestreams. For a taste of the livestreams, check out this π minute video!
The big news is that the next livestream will be free to view live online on 27th March from 5-6pm GMT. All four of us will be working through the recent ‘100 Mathematical Conventions Questions’ quiz that’s been dividing (a small subset of) the internet. The stream will be available live, and a recording will be available to members afterwards.