# Abel Prize 2018

The Abel Prize for 2018 has been awarded to Robert Langlands, for his work on representation theory and number theory. The Abel Prize website has a page with more information, including a lay explanation of Langlands’ work by Alex Bellos.

# Exactly how bad is the 13 times table?

Let’s recite the $13$ times table. Pay attention to the first digit of each number: \begin{array}{l} \color{blue}13, \\ \color{blue}26, \\ \color{blue}39, \\ \color{blue}52 \end{array} What happened to $\color{blue}4$‽ A while ago I was working through the $13$ times table for some boring reason, and I was in the kind of mood to find it really quite vexing… Read more »

# The OEIS now contains 300,000 integer sequences

The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences just keeps on growing: at the end of last month it added its 300,000th entry. Especially round entry numbers are set aside for particularly nice sequences to mark the passing of major milestones in the encyclopedia’s size; this time, we have four nice sequences starting at A300000. These were… Read more »

# Proof by sedition

$n > 2$

An unexpected bit of controversy involving mathematical notation hit the internet last week, when China's government briefly blocked all Chinese internet users from viewing any page or message containing the letter n﻿.

Apparently, those in charge of the Great Firewall feared that those who disapproved of Xi Jinping removing the two-term limit on his presidency of China would use the letter n to refer to the now-arbitrary number of terms for which he can remain in power.

There's some more context in a post by Victor Mair on Language Log, and in the Guardian.

# LMS Meeting in honour of Maryam Mirzakhani

The London Mathematical Society are organising an event later this month in honour of the late Fields Medalist Maryam Mirzakhani. It's at the University of Warwick on 22nd March, and will include talks outlining some of Mirzakhani's work, followed by a drinks reception and dinner. The event is part of a larger EPSRC symposium on Teichmüller dynamics.