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News 2005Raoul Bott, 1923-2005Raoul Bott, who did outstanding work in geometry and topology, died recently at the age of 82. Bott was born in Budapest, and worked at the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Michigan, and Harvard University where he was a professor for 40 years. He was awarded the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize, the AMS Oswald Veblen Prize and the AMS Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. The memorial service will be on Sunday, January 29 at 1:30 in the Memorial Church at Harvard University. More information about Raoul Bott is available in "Interview with Raoul Bott" by Allyn Jackson in the April 2001 issue of the Notices of the AMS. [Item posted 12/22/05]News from Tulane University's Math DepartmentIn the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, Tulane University was closed for the fall 2005 semester. Mathematics department chair Morris Kalka reports that as the university prepares to reopen for the spring 2006 semester the mathematics graduate program will be one of those on which the university will focus resources. The faculty will remain the same, as will the structure of the graduate program in mathematics, but the department expects to receive additional resources in the next few years.[Item posted 12/21/05]Mandelbrot to Give Einstein LectureBenoît Mandelbrot, Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University, will give the second AMS Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics. The lecture, The Nature of Roughness in Mathematics, Science, and Art, will take place Saturday, April 29 at San Francisco State University as part of the 2006 Spring Sectional Meeting. More details are available online. [Item posted 12/20/05] Mathematics Research Wins Top Honors in Siemens Westinghouse CompetitionMichael Viscardi, a high school senior who is home schooled, won the $100,000 Grand Prize scholarship in the individual category of the 2005 Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology. He won the prize for his mathematics research project, "On the Solution of the Dirichlet Problem with Rational Boundary Data." Viscardi's mentor on the project was Peter Ebenfelt (University of California, San Diego). The Siemens Westinghouse Foundation press release quotes one of the judges, Steven Krantz: "Mr. Viscardi dazzled us with his creative use of the mathematical language. His research is profound, substantial and complete, with potentially important practical applications in heat flow, magnetism, electrodynamics and other branches of physics. One important and exciting potential application of his work is in designing the shape of airplane wings." [Item posted 12/6/05] James G. Glimm is new AMS President ElectJames G. Glimm, from Stony Brook University, is the new President Elect of the AMS. His term officially begins on February 1, 2006. All election results are now online. [Item posted 11/29/05]Dennis Sullivan Awarded National Medal of ScienceDennis P. Sullivan (Einstein Chair in Mathematics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and Professor of Mathematics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook) will receive the National Medal of Science, the White House announced in a news release on November 14. Sullivan, born in 1941, is one of the outstanding mathematicians of his generation. His early work was in homotopy theory and surgery, to which he brought a new, geometric point of view. His theory of real and rational homotopy types, based on differential forms, has had profound applications, for example, to the topology of complex algebraic varieties. He also made important contributions to the study of foliations and dynamical systems and was responsible for the emergence of the field of conformal dynamics as a lively and important branch of mathematics straddling the traditional borders between pure and applied areas. Sullivan received the AMS Veblen Prize in 1971 and the King Faisal Prize in 1994. Kenneth J. Arrow, of Stanford University, a 1972 Economics Nobel Laureate whose work uses mathematics heavily, will also receive a National Medal of Science. [Item posted 11/17/05]Aumann Receives Nobel Prize in EconomicsRobert J. Aumann has received the 2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis". Aumann was the first to conduct a full-fledged formal analysis of so-called infinitely repeated games. His research identified exactly what outcomes can be upheld over time in long-run relations. Born 1930 in Frankfurt, Germany, Aumann received his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1955 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the direction of George Whitehead. Aumann is an Israeli and U.S. citizen and a professor at the Center for Rationality, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He shares the prize with economist Thomas C. Schelling of the University of Maryland. A press release is available on the Nobel Prize web site. [Item posted 10/11/05]2005 Trjitzinsky AwardsThe AMS has made US$21,000 in awards to eight undergraduate students through the Waldemar J. Trjitzinsky Memorial Fund. The fund is made possible by a bequest from the estate of Waldemar J., Barbara G., and Juliette Trjitzinsky. For the awards, the AMS chose seven geographically distributed schools to receive one-time awards of US$3,000 each. The mathematics departments at those schools then chose students to receive the funds to assist them in pursuit of careers in mathematics. The schools are selected in a random drawing from the pool of AMS institutional members. Below are the names of the selected schools for 2005 and the student recipients.
2005 Clay Research Awards AnnouncedManjul Bhargava (Princeton University) and Nils Dencker (Lund University) have been awarded the 2005 Clay Research Awards, which recognize extraordinary achievement in mathematics. The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) recognizes Bhargava for his discovery of new composition laws for quadratic forms, and for his work on the average size of ideal class groups. CMI recognizes Dencker for his complete resolution of a conjecture made by F. Treves and L. Nirenberg in 1970. The awards will be presented at CMI's annual meeting on October 11 at Oxford University, at which there will be talks on the awardees' work and a public lecture by Sir Andrew Wiles. See the Clay Mathematics Institute website for more information on the award winners, their research, and the Institute. [Item posted 9/26/05]AMS Members: Have You Received Your Election Ballot?The 2005 AMS Election is currently underway. If you are an AMS member and have not received either email with your instructions for voting online or a paper ballot, please contact Survey & Ballot Systems: ams@directvote.net or 952-974-2300. The deadline for the election is midnight EST on November 4, 2005. Further election information is online. [Item posted 9/23/05]Serge Lang, 1927-2005Serge Lang passed away on September 12 at the age of 78. Lang was a professor at Yale University from 1972 to 2005. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1951 under the direction of Emil Artin. Lang was awarded the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra in 1960 and the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition in 1999. He was well known for his mathematics texts and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. [Item posted 9/15/05]ICM 2006 Travel GrantsThe AMS has received funding from the National Science Foundation to provide partial travel support for U.S. mathematicians attending the 2006 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), which will take place August 22-30, 2006 in Madrid, Spain. The deadline to apply for travel support is October 31, 2005. Application forms and additional information are available online. [Item posted 9/15/05]AMS Releases MR Citation DatabaseMathSciNet now includes a new MR Citation Database , with accompanying author and journal tools, based on article citations from a growing collection of reference list journals. The author tool allows one to see the citations of the most cited items of individual authors. The journal tool provides statistics on individual journals and average citations per article over five-year periods along with a graphical display of citation history. For more information on these developments, see MathSciNet. [Item posted 9/12/05]For Mathematicians in New OrleansMathematicians in New Orleans may be away from their regular work environment for many months. The AMS is therefore providing alternative access to MathSciNet and our journals during this time. If you are a mathematician at one of the eight universities in New Orleans (University of New Orleans, Tulane University, Loyola University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Southern University at New Orleans, Our Lady of the Holy Cross College, Dillard University, Delgado Community College) you are eligible for this alternative access until your institution is able to re-activate its service. Beginning Tuesday, September 6, you can call 1-800-321-4267 to receive your username/password. We hope other publishers will provide similar access for all those affected by hurricane Katrina and the flooding. Please pass along this information. Also, if you are at another institution affected by the hurricane, please call the above number to let us know. Mathematicians Displaced by KatrinaIn the months ahead, mathematicians at institutions closed by the recent hurricane and flooding will be seeking places to work temporarily, either as visiting faculty or as adjuncts. Several departments around the country have already offered to host some faculty. The AMS would like to help in matching displaced mathematicians with departments by sharing information. If you are a mathematician displaced by hurricane Katrina and you are seeking a temporary place to work, or if you represent a mathematics department that might have available space for a mathematician, please call 1-800-321-4267 and ask for "Katrina Relief". You will be asked for only basic information and further contact information. Neither mathematicians nor departments are making any commitment by giving us this information. The AMS will NOT make assignments of any kind. Our job is to help mathematicians and departments connect in order to allow each to make decisions. Please let your colleagues know about this as well. 2005 Erdős Memorial LectureThe 2005 Erdős Memorial Lecture will be given by Persi Diaconis, of Stanford University, on October 8. Diaconis' lecture, Erdős picture of "most things," will take place during the Fall Eastern Section Meeting of the AMS at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. The Erdős Memorial Lecture is an annual invited address made possible by a fund created by Andrew Beal, a Dallas banker. The lecture is named for mathematician Paul Erdős (1913-1996). [Item posted 9/9/05]Epsilon Memorial Scholarship Awards for 2005The following students were awarded memorial scholarships from the AMS. The first student listed below received a Roderick P.C. Caldwell Scholarship ; the other five students each received a Ky and Yu-Fen Fan Scholarship . The scholarship winners, their schools, and the summer Young Scholars Program they participated in are listed below.
IMO 2005 ResultsChina finished first among 93 countries at the 46th International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) in Mérida, México. The Chinese team totaled 235 points out of a possible 252 and had five gold medalists, four of whom earned perfect scores. The U.S. team finished second with 213 points and Russia was third with 212 points. The three countries finished in the same order in 2004. Rounding out the top five countries were Iran with 201 points and South Korea with 200. The IMO 2005 site has complete results. On the U.S. team, Robert Cordwell, Brian Lawrence (perfect score), Thomas Mildorf and Eric Price received gold medals; Sherry Gong and Hyun Soo Kim received silver medals. The 2006 IMO will be held July 6-17 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. [Item posted 7/20/05]McCallum and Ono Named NSF Distinguished Teaching ScholarsMathematics professors William McCallum (University of Arizona) and Ken Ono (University of Wisconsin-Madison) are among seven people nationwide who have been named by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as 2005 Director's Distinguished Teaching Scholars. Each received an award of up to $300,000 for four years. The seven were recognized "for having achieved not only groundbreaking results in research, but for their strong teaching and mentoring skills and major educational contributions." [Item posted 6/23/05]2005 U.S. Math Olympiad TeamThe members of the United States team who will compete in the 46th International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) are:
The 2005 IMO will be held July 8-19 in Mérida, México. [Item posted 6/20/05] Levin Wins Kyoto PrizeOn June 10, the Inamori Foundation announced that mathematical biologist Simon A. Levin of Princeton University would receive the 2005 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences. The Kyoto Prize is presented annually for extraordinary lifelong achievement in the areas of advanced technology, basic sciences, and arts and philosophy. One of the highest international awards for service to science and culture, the prize carries a monetary award of 50 million Japanese yen (around US$500,000). A news release is available on the Inamori Foundation web site. Among the previous recipients of the Kyoto Prize are I. M. Gelfand, Mikhael Gromov, Kyosi Ito, Rudolf Kalman, Donald Knuth, John McCarthy, Claude Shannon, and André Weil. [Item posted 6/14/05] 2005-2006 Centennial Fellowship AwardsMihnea Popa (Harvard University) and Yuan-Pin Lee (University of Utah) have been chosen to receive AMS Centennial Fellowships for 2005-2006 to help further their careers in research. The amount of the fellowship is $62,000, plus an expense allowance of $3,000 and a complimentary AMS membership for one year. Read the news releases about Popa and Lee, and see more information about the AMS Centennial Fellowship. [Item posted 6/8/05] Mathematical Sciences in the FY 2006 BudgetSamuel M. Rankin, III, Director of the AMS's Washington D.C. office, writes an annual report for Notices of the AMS on support for the mathematical sciences in the upcoming year's federal budget. "Mathematical Sciences in the FY 2006 Budget" is in the June/July issue (Vol. 52, No. 6, page 642). Rankin provides details on the budget for the mathematical sciences funded through the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the National Institutes of Health. He reports that the support "is slated to grow from an estimated $390.68 million in FY 2005 to an estimated $397.58 million in FY 2006, an increase of 1.8 percent. This is the lowest rate of increase for the mathematical sciences in several years." Read Rankin's report and analysis of trends, as well as "The Budget Vise Tightens: NSF Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Request," by Allyn Jackson. [Item posted 6/8/05]Three New Resources for PostdocsThe National Postdoctoral Association has released three new resources for postdocs:* Recommendations for Postdoctoral Policies and Practices : a resource for institutional leaders, postdoc office administrators, principal investigators and postdoc association leaders. * Postdoc Association Toolkit : a resource guide to assist postdocs and their allies in starting and sustaining an effective Postdoc Associaton. * International Postdoc Survival Guide : a guide to help international postdocs navigate life and work in the United States. [Item posted 6/8/05] Wiles Receives US$1 million Shaw PrizeJune 3, 2005: The Shaw Prize Foundation has announced that Andrew Wiles of Princeton University will receive the 2005 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences , for his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. The prize bears a monetary award of US$1 million. This is the second time the prize has been awarded. The first Shaw Prize in Mathematics went to the late S. S. Chern in 2004. Read more about the Shaw Prize. [Item posted 6/3/05] Royal Welcome to Abel Laureate Peter LaxNorway's Crown Prince Regent will award the 2005 Abel Prize to Peter D. Lax on May 24. The city of Oslo and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters are preparing for several days of events that will honor Lax, including the prize ceremony, lectures by and in honor of Lax, a banquet at the Akershus Castle, and some special events for local teachers and students. Lax is receiving the US$980,000 Abel Prize "for his groundbreaking contributions to the theory and application of partial differential equations and to the computation of their solutions." See the Abel Prize website for details about the international prize ceremony, all the festivities, and the 2005 Abel Symposium. [Item posted 5/19/05] Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering MentoringOn May 16, President Bush announced the recipients of the 2004 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. The award, supported and administered by the National Science Foundation, honors individuals and institutions that have enhanced the participation of underrepresented groups - such as women, minorities and people with disabilities - in science, mathematics and engineering education. Among the nine individuals and five organizations honored are:
More information on the award and the other recipients is available at the National Science Foundation website. [Item posted 5/18/05] AMS Opposes Academic BoycottsAt a recent meeting of the British Association of University Teachers, delegates approved a resolution to boycott two universities in Israel. The AMS is opposed to academic boycotts, and at its January 2003 meeting, the Council endorsed a statement of opposition from the National Academy of Sciences. A more recent statement from the American Association of University Professors reflects this opposition as well. [Item posted 5/12/05]Math in Moscow Scholarships AnnouncedThe following undergraduate students have been awarded Math in Moscow scholarships: Thomas Franklin Church (Cornell University), Henry F. Danaher (Dartmouth College), Noah Jacob Giansiracusa (University of Washington, Seattle), Igor Konfisakhar (Washington University in St. Louis), and Rodrigo Trevino (University of Texas at Austin). The students will study at The Independent University in fall 2005. See information on and guidelines for applying for the Math in Moscow program, and read feedback from some past scholarship recipients in the Fall 2004 AMS Member Newsletter (page 2). [Item posted 5/9/05]New Stamps Honor Four Mathematicians and ScientistsThe U.S. Postal Service has issued four new stamps honoring pioneering mathematicians and scientists. Featured on the 37-cent stamps are: Josiah Willard Gibbs, who earned the first engineering doctorate in the U.S. (from Yale University) and who has an annual AMS lecture named for him; Barbara McClintock, who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in medicine; John von Neumann, one of the top mathematicians of the 20th century; and Richard P. Feynman, who won the 1965 Nobel Prize in physics. First day of issue ceremonies were held at Yale University, whose website has more information on the honorees and the stamps. [Item posted 5/5/05]Mathematicians Elected to National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences has announced the election of 72 new members and 18 foreign associates. Seven mathematicians are among those honored. Elected as new members are:
Adi Shamir, Borman Professorial Chair of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Department of Computer Science, Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), was elected as a foreign associate. Nineteen women were elected to the Academy--the largest number of women elected to the Academy in one year. See the Academy press release for more information. [Item posted 5/4/05] Math on Science FridayThe April 29 edition of NPR's Science Friday featured one hour of mathematics. Host Ira Flatow was joined by Keith Devlin, Sarah Greenwald, Gary Lorden and Robert Osserman, who talked about how mathematics is turning up on some prime-time television shows. Devlin is a frequent guest on NPR and author of The Math Instinct ; Greenwald is an associate professor of mathematics at Appalachian State University and a member of the 2005 Mathematics Awareness Month committee; Lorden is Executive Officer for Mathematics at the California Institute of Technology and the math technical consultant for the TV show Numb3rs ; and Osserman is Special Projects Director at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and chair of the 2005 Mathematics Awareness Month committee. An archive of the show is available online. [Item posted 4/29/05]Saunders Mac Lane, 1909-2005Saunders Mac Lane, AMS President from 1973 to 1974, died recently. Mac Lane helped develop category theory and co-authored A Survey of Modern Algebra with Garrett Birkhoff. The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive has Mac Lane's biography and list of publications. Read "Garrett Birkhoff and The Survey of Modern Algebra, " by Mac Lane in Notices of the AMS, December 1997. [Item posted 4/22/05]AMS Announces Mass Media Fellowship AwardBrent Deschamp has been awarded the 2005 AMS-AAAS Mass Media Fellowship. Deschamp will work for ten weeks this summer at WOSU-AM, the Public Broadcasting Station of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The goals of the fellowship are to strengthen the connections between science and the media, improve public understanding of science, and sharpen the ability of the fellows to communicate complex scientific issues to non-specialists. See the AMS-sponsored AMS-AAAS Mass Media Fellowship page for more details about the Deschamp, the program, a list of past AMS Fellows and where they were assigned to work, a link to the AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellows Program, and how to contact the AMS for more information. [Item posted 4/21/05]Fan Fund Travel Grants AwardedKy and Yu-Fen Fan Fund Travel Grants have been awarded for the 2005-2006 academic year. Yum-Tong Siu (Harvard University) will travel to Fujian Normal University; Yangbo Ye (University of Iowa) will travel to the School of Mathematics and Systems - Shandong; Yuxin Dong (Fudan University) and Yu Zheng (East China Normal University) will travel to the University of California, San Diego; and Yingi Wu (University of Science and Technology of China) will travel to the University of Wisconsin - Madison). Read about the Ky and Yu-Fen Fan China Exchange Program. [Item posted 4/14/05] 2005 Intel Science Talent Search Math AwardsTwo mathematics projects were among the top ten in the 2005 Intel Science Talent Search. Robert Thomas Cordwell of Manzano High School (NM) won fourth place and a $25,000 scholarship for his project, "Some Results on Inclusive and Exclusive Partitions of Complete Graphs." Po-Ling Loh of James Madison Memorial High School (WI) won tenth place and a $20,000 scholarship for her project, "Closure Properties of D2p in Finite Groups." (Po-Ling is a former winner of the AMS game Who Wants to Be a Mathematician . ) First place and a $100,000 scholarship went to David Vigliarolo Bauer of the Bronx (NY) for his project to detect neurotoxins. The Science Service website has more details on the winners and the competition. [Item posted 3/21/05] 2005 Epsilon Fund AwardsAMS Epsilon Fund for Young Scholars will award grants to the following 2005 summer programs for talented math students: All Girls/All Math Summer Camp for High School Girls, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Canada/USA Mathcamp, Reed College, Portland, OR; Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA; MathPath, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO; Michigan Math and Science Scholars Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; PROMYS, Boston University, Boston, MA; Ross Mathematics Program, The Ohio State University, Columbus; Texas State Honors Summer Math Camp, Texas State University, San Marcos; and University of Chicago Young Scholars program, University of Chicago, IL. Read more about the Epsilon Fund. [Item posted 3/17/05]Prime Number Record ExtendedThe Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the largest known prime number. The number, 225,964,951 - 1, has almost eight million digits and is the 42nd known Mersenne prime. (Mersenne primes are prime numbers of the form 2p - 1.) The number was discovered on the computer of Dr. Martin Nowack, a German eye surgeon, through GIMPS, a distributed computing project. [Item posted 3/7/05]National Medal of ScienceOn February 15, 2005, R. Duncan Luce and Carl de Boor were named recipients of the National Medal of Science, the U.S. government's highest honor recognizing outstanding achievement in scientific and mathematical research. Luce, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences and Economics at the University of California, Irvine, is a pioneer in the field of mathematical behavioral sciences. de Boor, emeritus professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Wisconsin, is an outstanding figure in the field of numerical analysis. A news release is available from the National Science Foundation, which coordinates selection of the medalists. [Item posted 2/18/2005]2005 Wolf PrizeGregory A. Margulis (Yale University) and Sergei P. Novikov (University of Maryland, College Park) have been named co-winners of the 2005 Wolf Prize in mathematics by the Wolf Foundation and will share $100,000. The selection committee cited Margulis for his "monumental contributions to algebra," and Novikov for his contributions to algebraic topology, differential topology and mathematical physics. The prizes will be awarded on May 22 in Jerusalem. For more information contact wolffund@netvision.net.il. [Item posted 2/3/05]Mathematics at the AAAS Annual MeetingThe annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) will take place February 17-21 in Washington, D.C. Some of the math-related events are listed below.Topical Lecture
The meeting website has more information. [Item posted 2/1/05] Ronald Fedkiw to receive NAS Award for Initiatives in ResearchThe National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has selected 17 individuals to receive awards honoring their outstanding scientific achievements. Ronald Fedkiw, assistant professor of computer science, computer systems laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, is receiving the NAS Award for Initiatives in Research - a prize of $15,000 awarded annually to recognize innovative young scientists and to encourage research likely to lead toward new capabilities for human benefit (computational science/applied mathematics in 2005). Fedkiw was chosen "for his many innovations in the modeling and numerical simulation of flows and his pioneering contributions to physically based computer graphics." The 2005 awards for major contributions to science will be presented on May 2 at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. [Item posted 1/31/05]
Response to Harvard President's Comments on Women in Math and ScienceRecent comments by Harvard University President Lawrence Summers about women's success in math and science have generated considerable controversy. Although Summers has posted an apology on the Harvard University website, AMS President David Eisenbud and President-elect James Arthur feel strongly about this matter and issued the following statement:"The speculations made by Lawrence Summers, President of Harvard University, at a conference on January 14, 2005 about the causes of the current shortage of women in science were inappropriate. His high position at Harvard places on him a high burden of responsibility. His remarks may be damaging and counterproductive to a cause he and all educators should support. We who strive to make our subject areas attractive and accessible to all express our dismay at such remarks." [Item posted 1/21/05] Current Events in MathematicsAMS President David Eisenbud organized the AMS Special Session on Current Events at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta. The titles of the talks presented at the session and the speakers are listed below.
A booklet (4 MB, pdf), which contains all the above talks, is available online. [Item posted 1/14/05]
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