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A new aspect of mathematics

This is a guest post written by David Nkansah, a mathematics student at the University of Glasgow.

Around the fourth century BC, the term ‘Mathematics’ was defined by Aristotle as the “science of quantity”. It’s my own experience as a young mathematician to say this definition, although correct in its own right, poses a problem for those who do not truly know what mathematics is. It fails to highlight the true creativity of the subject.

Human inspiration and imagination are essential ingredients in mathematics. Regarding creativity, one could say, with merit, that in a sense mathematics is an art. Before proceeding to outline similarities between sketching mathematical proofs and painting on a canvas, it is important to know what fundamental premises mathematical proofs are built on.

Timothy Gowers has launched a new arXiv overlay journal

Photo of Gowers CC BY-SA Bobfish 341 on WikipediaSir Timothy Gowers has announced on his blog a new journal, Discrete Analysis, of which he will be the managing editor. Rather than a traditional journal, this will be an open-access ‘arXiv overlay’.

Elsevier one year on: “essentially nothing has changed”

A new post on Gowers’s Weblog gives, with permission, a letter of resignation from the editorial board of Elsevier’s Journal of Number Theory sent by Greg Martin. Gowers promises that the letter makes “interesting reading”, and he’s right.

Martin points out that it has been over a year since the Elsevier boycott began (covered on this site in the Open Access Update of 25th of May). The boycott currently claims 13,656 researchers have signed up. Martin says that the boycott caused “a flurry of communication back and forth between Elsevier and our editorial board (and those of other journals, I’m sure)”, but, he says “now the dust has settled, and I must conclude that essentially nothing has changed”.

In an interesting letter, Martin reflects on the original Gowers blog post, and on the Elsevier reaction to it, including a proposal to pay a fee to editors for processing articles (Martin says, “we want access to be less expensive; we’re not looking for extra dough in our pockets”).

Read the letter: Elsevier journals: has anything changed?

Education reform in England: new initiatives and changes announced

It’s shaping up to be a busy month for education reform in England. Here’s some news in brief.

Open Access Round Up

The march of the righteous towards victory over the rent-seeking publishers continues apace, so here’s another Open Access round up. I’m not even going to bother trying to remain impartial any more, for the following reasons:

Sir Tim Gowers

The latest Queen’s Birthday Honours list has been released. The list includes, under “Knights Bachelor – Knighthoods”, “Professor William Timothy Gowers, FRS, Royal Society Research Professor, Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, University of Cambridge” for “services to Mathematics” and, under “Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)”, “Mrs Manju Tank, Maths Teacher, Taunton’s College, Southampton” for “services to Education”.

I trust readers will know Fields medallist Tim Gowers, perhaps via his well known blog. The Southern Daily Echo reports that Manju Tank “has dedicated 40 years of her life to helping Hampshire’s ethnic minorities access vital services” and that the MBE recognises “a career spanning four decades which has seen her help hundreds of city youngsters overcome language barriers”.

Sources:
The Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2012.
Queen honours unsung heroes across Hampshire in her Diamond Jubilee year.

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