University of Wisconsin - Madison
Autumn Kent offered a perspective of mathematical thinking in terms of Atari, doughnuts and geometry in the recent “Fueling Discovery” insert for the Wisconsin State Journal. Link: https://madisonstatejournal-wi.newsmemory.com/?special=Fueling+Discovery
Much of the discussion about the coronavirus comes from mathematical models about how we expect the coronavirus to behave. Professor Jordan Ellenberg has been discussing mathematical models of coronavirus in several online forums.
Qin Li has been working with other researchers here at the UW to combat coronavirus. She is part of a group of researchers, led by UW Geography Professor Song Gao, using cell phone tracking data to model traveling and the spread of the coronavirus. Li will use the team’s data to inform mathematical models of …
Mostafa Hassan, of Greenfield, Wisconsin, has been named 1 of 4 Goldwater Scholars for the UW this year. He will graduate in May 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer engineering. He is a 2017 winner of the Wisconsin Math, Science, and Engineering Talent Search, a proctored competitive written examination, and a recipient of …
The article showcases a week in the life of the Oberwolfach Research Institute for Mathematics in Germany. During that week, our own Autumn Kent was part of a group of mathematicians who visited to discuss low-dimensional topology. Link: https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematics-as-a-team-sport-20200331/
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel features Sara Jensen, a UW–Madison alumna and professor at Carthage College (Ph.D., 2014, Isaacs), who teaches students math through knitting. And we’re not just talking potholders. Someone actually knitted a working Rubik’s cube, Jensen says. “This class is a way for math to be creative.” Link: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2020/01/23/mathematical-knitting-wisconsins-carthage-college-teaches-geometry/4532074002/
Vadim Gorin, who recently joined the UW-Madison Department of Mathematics, seeks to obtain precise mathematical descriptions for very large random systems. He is looking forward to teaching students that math is “interesting, unpredictable and beautiful.” Read more
Two mathematicians, Will Sawin of Columbia University and Mark Shusterman of University of Wisconsin-Madison, recently posted a proof of a version of one of the most famous open problems in mathematics. The result opens a new front in the study of the twin primes conjecture, which has bedeviled mathematicians for more than a century and has implications …
Jordan Ellenberg joins a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, another bestselling author and a leader in global sustainable agriculture are among six newly elected Andrew Dickson White Professors-at-Large at Cornell. The professors-at-large program at Cornell sponsors up to 20 outstanding scholars and public intellectuals at one time, in the life sciences, physical sciences, humanities, social sciences and …
In The Guardian, Jordan Ellenberg explains his own way of calculating a book’s unreadability, which he dubbed the Hawking Index. Ellenberg looked at the sections that readers have highlighted on Amazon’s Kindle e-readers, and infers that after they’ve stopped highlighting, they’ve probably stopped reading. Link: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/books-to-read-unread-tsundoku-hawking-index-malcolm-cowley-antilibrary-a8521901.html