As well as the recent Abel Prize award to Karen Uhlenbeck, here are some other mathematical and related awards from this month.
Abel Prize 2019 goes to Karen Uhlenbeck
The Abel Prize for 2019 has been awarded to Karen Uhlenbeck. The citation reads: for her pioneering achievements in geometric partial differential equations, gauge theory and integrable systems, and for the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics.
π calculated to 31 trillion digits
This Pi Day, Emma Haruka Iwao has announced calculation of \(\pi\) to \( \pi \times 10^{13} = 31,\!415,\!926,\!535,\!897 \) digits, exceeding the previous record of 22 trillion digits set in November 2016.
This used y-cruncher, running Chudnovky’s algorithm. Chudnovky’s algorithm is \( \mathcal{O}(n(\log n)^3)\), making each record more impressive. In a blog post, Emma writes about the benefits of using a cloud cluster, saying the calculation ran on a virtual machine cluster, using
25 nodes for 111.8 days, or 2,795 machine-days (7.6 machine-years), during which time Google Cloud performed thousands of live migrations uninterrupted and with no impact on the calculation process.
Ways to access the digits and fun related bits and bobs are outlined in the blog post.
More information
Pi in the sky: Calculating a record-breaking 31.4 trillion digits of Archimedes’ constant on Google Cloud by Emma Haruka Iwao.
Emma Haruka Iwao smashes pi world record with Google help, BBC News.
Buzz in when you think you know the answer
Aperiodical guest author Andrew Taylor writes about an intriguing piece of number theory which turns out to also be something else. How many ways are there of writing some natural number $n$ as the sum of two squares? $$ n = p^2 + q^2 $$ I don’t want an answer for some particular $n$. I…
I’m streaming digits of π for π day
It’s π eve, and I’ve had a silly idea: I’m going to take the ridiculous website I made to show all the digits of π, and stream it scrolling indefinitely through them over the internet. Starting at midnight GMT on 2019-03-14, the stream below will start scrolling down through the digits of π: I had…
33 can be written as the sum of three cubes
It was an open question whether 33 could be written as the sum of three cubes. Thanks to Andrew R. Booker, it now isn’t. \begin{array}{c} (8866128975287528)^3 \\ + \\(-8778405442862239)^3 \\ + \\(-2736111468807040)^3 \\ = \\ 33\end{array}
I’ve made some maths t-shirts, and you can buy them
Good maths t-shirts are hard to come by, so I’ve made four of my own.