Sir Michael Atiyah and Cédric Villani, Fields medallists, holders of a frankly embarrassing number of other awards, and highly entertaining speakers, will be having a conversation “to explore mathematics and topology” at Tate Modern, London, on June 2nd, following a screening of the film Au Bonheur des Maths.
All metro systems eventually have the same shape
The BBC and Scientific American report on a paper looking, “in an exploratory manner,” at the limiting shape of metro systems serving large cities. The BBC linked to the actual paper, which is nice of them. The Scientific American article goes into a bit more detail, though. The authors contend that rather than the shape of…
Modelling obesity
(No, this story is not about plus-size fashion week) The New York Times has published an interview with Carson C. Chow, an applied mathematician who models the factors causing obesity in the human body. He claims that the main cause of America’s obesity problem is the overproduction of food. Dr. Chow has written a post…
Modified packing problem might save lives
Unhelpful framing news, now. A University of Michigan of press release begins: A hidden facet of a math problem that goes back to timeworn Sanskrit manuscripts has just been exposed by nanotechnology researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Connecticut.
Looking at mathematical literature as literature
Stanford University News have posted a press release/interview with Reviel Netz about his book Ludic Proof: Greek Mathematics and the Alexandrian Aesthetic.
P-p-p-publicise a paper!
We love hearing about new maths but keeping up with the literature is difficult. It’s also quite hard to tell if something outside your field of expertise is noteworthy or not. So we want your help directing our attention towards new and noteworthy research, whether it’s on the arXiv or in peer-reviewed journals or just…
The strange case of Misha Verbitsky and the trademarked beard
A mathematician named Misha Verbitsky was arrested while trying to leave his native Russia for a conference in Poland, and is now banned from leaving the country. Apparently, he had been convicted in absentia of infringing Igor Pugach’s copyright in a blog post criticising him.