The London Mathematical Society has announced the winners of its various prizes and medals for this year. Here’s a summary of the more senior prizes: Alex Wilkie gets the Pólya prize for “his profound contributions to model theory and to its connections with real analytic geometry.” Peter Cameron gets a Senior Whitehead prize for “his…
Laws of mathematics not as immutable as we thought, in Australia
Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull said, as part of a speech proposing a law to force tech companies to give the government access to encrypted messages, “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.” The problem is that the end-to-end encryption schemes used by messaging…
Carnival of Mathematics 147
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of June, and compiled by Lucy, is now online at Cambridge Mathematics. The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.
Square wheels in an Italian maths exam
There have been various stories in the Italian press and discussion on a Physics teaching mailing list I’m accidentally on about a question in the maths exam for science high schools in Italy last week. The paper appears to be online. (Ed. – Here’s a copy of the first part of this four-part question, reproduced…
The curious mathmo talks to David Roberts
Way back at the end of last year I put out a call to mathematicians I know: hop on Skype and chat to me for a while about the work you’re doing at the moment. The first person to answer was David Roberts, a pure mathematician from Adelaide. We had a fascinating talk about one thread of…
Patterns and code to make your own cellular automaton scarves now online
If you remember our post about Fabienne Serrière’s amazing Cellular Automaton Scarves Kickstarter back in 2015, you’ll be pleased to hear Fabienne has now put the patterns, and all the code you need to make your own scarves, online on her Ravelry page. If you have a knitting machine and are prepared to hack it to…
Shaw Prize 2017 awarded to two algebraic geometers
The announcement of the Shaw Prize was posted on 23rd May, reading: The Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences 2017 is awarded in equal shares to János Kollár and Claire Voisin for their remarkable results in many central areas of algebraic geometry, which have transformed the field and led to the solution of long-standing problems that had appeared out of reach.…