Providence, RI—”Mathematics links Art and Science in one great enterprise, the human attempt to make sense of the universe.” So writes Abel Prizewinner and Fields Medalist Sir Michael F. Atiyah in the January 2010 Notices of the American Mathematical Society. The theme of the issue is creativity in mathematics. Mathematicians have always felt a strong [...]
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Math goes viral
January 17th, 2010 
admin At least a dozen Alberta high-school calculus classrooms were exposed to the West Nile virus recently. Luckily, however, it wasn’t literally the illness. University of Alberta education professor Stephen Norris and mathematics professor Gerda de Vries used the virus as a theoretical tool when they designed materials for use in an advanced high-school math course. [...]
Worldwide study finds few gender differences in math abilities
January 17th, 2010 admin Girls around the world are not worse at math than boys, even though boys are more confident in their math abilities, and girls from countries where gender equity is more prevalent are more likely to perform better on mathematics assessment tests, according to a new analysis of international research. “Stereotypes about female inferiority in mathematics [...]
Predicting insurgent attacks with a mathematical model
January 17th, 2010 admin When bombs and bullets left 37 dead during Friday prayers at a mosque in Pakistan, earlier this month, the insurgency was using the element of surprise. Unpredictability is the hallmark of modern insurgent attacks such as this one. However, the likelihood of such events, their timing and strength can now be estimated and managed before [...]
New mathematical model aids simulations of early universe
January 17th, 2010 admin Scientists have made many discoveries about the origins of our 13.7 billion-year-old universe. But many scientific mysteries remain. What exactly happened during the Big Bang, when rapidly evolving physical processes set the stage for gases to form stars, planets and galaxies? Now astrophysicists using supercomputers to simulate the Big Bang have a new mathematical tool [...]
