Latest news from Plus magazine! - http://plus.maths.org
In this newsletter:
- Latest news
- The Plus new writers award
- Browse with Plus
- Mathematical moments
- Live maths
**********
Latest news
Vaccination works - How to deal with infectious diseases
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/jan-apr06/fmd/index.html
Helping business make a crust - The new Knowledge Transfer Network is
showing business how to do mathematics and mathematics how to do business.
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/jan-apr06/ktn/index.html
Abel to iPod - The 2006 Abel prize celebrates the mathematician who helped
make mp3s possible.
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/jan-apr06/abel/index.html
Plus... more news from the world of maths
Security from outer space
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/jan-apr05/plusmore35/index.html#quasarcryptography
**********
The Plus new writers award
Watch this space for the Plus new writers award which will be launched
in May. School students, undergraduates and anyone from the general
public will be invited to write on any topic with a mathematical angle
that is aimed at the Plus audience, with the closing date for entries on
September 31st. The winners will not only have their articles published in
the December issue of Plus they will also win a haul of prizes including an
iPod! You'll be informed of the launch of the awards by a news flash email
and by a Plus news story.
**********
Browse with Plus
In time for April fool's day blogger Gregory K. Pincus started a craze for
telling fibs on the web. A "fib" is a truly nerdy type of poem in
which the number of syllables in each line is given by the Fibonacci
sequence. Apparently, 1000s of fibs have been written since, and even the
New York Times and the Independent have picked up on the story.
Gregory K. Pincus's blog with lots of fibs is at
http://gottabook.blogspot.com/
You can read the NYT article on
http://news.com.com/Fibonacci+poems+multiply+on+the+Web/2100-1026_3-6063501.html?tag=nefd.lede
and the Independent article on
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article357817.ece
Talking about fibbing, this interesting article about a sensational new
discovery appeared on Ivars Peterson's Mathtrek in the beginning of this
month http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060401/mathtrek.asp
**********
Mathematical moments
Kurt Goedel - Born 28 April 1906 in Brno, Czech Republic, died 14 Jan 1978
in Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Kurt Goedel would have been 100 this year and this centenary is being
celebrated by mathematicians all over the world. Goedel's work in
mathematical logic had significant consequences for maths, philosophy and
computer science. His best known result, the "incompleteness theorem",
states that in any formalised "axiomatic" mathematical system, there are
statements that can't be proved to be true or false on the basis of the
axioms. For a hundred years previously mathematicians had been searching
for a finite set of rules - "axioms" - on which all of maths could be based
- each and every mathematical truth should be derived from these axioms
only by using logical reasoning. Goedel's incompleteness theorem dealt a
severe blow to these attempts. It showed that maths wasn't as mechanical as
people had thought or hoped. It later transpired that it also means that
computers cannot calculate the answer to every mathematical problem.
But the incompleteness theorem was by no means the only important result of
Goedel's. He significantly contributed to set theory and also to relativity
theory. A friend of Einstein's - and of mind-boggling concepts - he proved
that Einstein's theory of relativity allows for time travel into the past.
Though clearly a genius, Goedel's private life was not entirely happy.
Since early on in life he had been plagued by hypochondria and fear of
being poisoned, and he suffered several nervous breakdowns. He had to flee
Vienna from the Nazis in 1940 and finally settled in Princeton, USA. He
became more and more reclusive and finally died from self-inflicted
starvation for fear of being poisoned.
You can read more about Goedel's life and work on the MacTutor history of
maths site
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Godel.html
Find out more about the incompleteness theorem with this interesting
article by Torkel Franzen http://www.sm.luth.se/~torkel/eget/godel.html
Read the Plus article "Omega and why maths has no TOEs" by Gregory Chaitin,
which describes maths related to Goedel's work
http://plus.maths.org/issue37/features/omega/
Watch out for an article on Goedel in the June issue of Plus
**********
Live maths
Albert Einstein: Scientist and Superstar!
Albert Einstein is one of the most recognisable cultural icons of the
twentieth century and even his equation e=mc^2 has made it onto mainstream
culture. Professor Norman McCubbin from the Particle Physics Department at
the CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory will talk about the man, his work
and his time in this lecture organised be the Oxford Science Trust. They
mention in their advert that "the discussion of the physics will be with a
minimum of mathematics" - but we'll forgive them for that.
When: 4th May 2006 7 pm
Where: Science Oxford
1-5 London Place
Oxford
OX4 1BD
How much: £4, £2.50 students, members free
Contact: 01865 728953
http://www.oxtrust.org.uk
Happy reading from the Plus team!
**********
If you received this message you have subscribed yourself to the
PLUS-ANNOUNCE mailing list via our website. If you do not wish to remain on
the list please visit
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=plus-announce&A=1
and follow the instructions to leave the list.
If you have any comments on this newsletter, or Plus Magazine, please
contact us at [log in to unmask] - we are always happy to hear from our
readers!
Feel free to forward this email to anyone you think might be interested.
|
