[CvGmt News] IMU-Net 23: May 2007

Tue May 29 16:39:53 CEST 2007

IMU-Net 23: May 2007

A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

CONTENTS

1. Editorial
2. Program Committee for ICM 2010 appointed
3. IMU on the Web
4. Abel Prize 2007 awarded
5. Centennial of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction
6. African Mathematical Union Commission on the History of Mathematics
in Africa
7. The Electronic Newsletter of ICSU
8. Subscribing to IMU-Net

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1. EDITORIAL

Dear Reader,
We had our first meeting  of the EC in Oslo and I can assure
that it was "a lot of work". This is a sign that IMU is serving more and
more the mathematical community. In fact for me this is the most important
point, the fact that we "the mathematicians" act and feel as being members
of a community and want to make a serious effort  towards the goal  of
making this community really  universal.

It was for me an element of pride to read that, after world war one, it
was an Italian president of IMU, Salvatore Pincherle, who insisted on
inviting to the 1928 ICM mathematicians from the countries who had
lost the war: the "enemies".
This created a clash inside IMU and we all know how
tragic it was the inability to bring back those countries into the
international community  at that time. We needed another terrible war to
start to understand how to cooperate, at least in a part of the world.
After the fall of the wall we have been able to  knit the ties  between
the western and eastern European mathematicians and we face now the much
harder task to integrate into our community mathematicians from countries
which, for political, economic or even cultural reasons  are  isolated
from us. We are small players in the world, with very limited financial
resources but with great  human resources and a universal language to
offer. Our society, IMU, can serve as a reference point  for the many
organizations who work to build up mathematics in developing countries
and, hopefully, also as a fund-raiser. Remember that we need all the
help we can get.

Claudio Procesi
Vice President, IMU Executive Committee

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2. PROGRAM COMMITTEE FOR ICM 2010 APPOINTED

The IMU Executive Committee appointed the Program Committee (PC)
for the International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad,
India, 19-27 August 2010 at its meeting in Oslo in May 2007.
The names of the PC members will be kept secret until the
congress, except for the PC chair.

The PC will soon start its work by defining the structure of the
scientific program, e.g., the sections and their precise definition,
the kind of lectures, their number, their purpose, and their
arrangement, whether to have short communications and/or poster
sessions. Although programs of previous ICMs will traditionally
be used as rough guidelines, every ICM PC has come up with some
innovations and changes. The PC chair Hendrik W. Lenstra invites
suggestions for the ICM 2010 program. If you have good proposals
please contact him by e-mail:
hwlicm at math.leidenuniv.nl

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3. IMU ON THE WEB
The Web, Math Encyclopedias, Peer Review

What to say? I had promised myself to write for you about ... but I
haven't done the work and ... just now surfing a mathematical topic on
the web I was sadly reminded of the ability of the web to present
misguided material as if it were the advice of careful pundits. It is
a truism that good writing means rewriting and rewriting again;
somehow, that's not encouraged by the web. The unevenness of the
quality of pages presented as parts of web math encyclopedias startles
me; I don't think that was as true of their paper predecessors. I
cannot help but believe that traditionally published material was much
better moderated and edited; it also had the advantage, generally, of
being commissioned from honest-to-goodness authorities.

A Great Stride Forward.
Yet, I also keep on being happily surprised by the web. Specifically,
I happened to google the phrase "four squares in arithmetic
progression" and was provided with a large collection of relevant
sample pages from scanned books. I owned several of the books and was
thus readily able to check a reference ... This new opportunity to
search the full text of books is marvellous and adds significant value
to any math book collection.

... more on these and related matters at
http://www.ceic.math.ca/News/IMUonWeb.shtml#CEIC20

Alf van der Poorten (alfATmaths.usyd.edu.au), member of the CEIC

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4. ABEL PRIZE 2007 AWARDED

On 22 May 2007, the King of Norway presented the Abel Prize for 2007
to Srinivasa S.R. Varadhan, Courant Institute of Mathematical
Sciences, New York.
S.S.R. Varadhan presented his Abel lecture on 23 May, followed by
lectures by G. Papanicolaou, O. Zeitouni and T. Lyons.

See: http://www.abelprisen.no/en/

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5. CENTENIAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION

First Century of the International Commission on Mathematical
Instruction (1908-2008): Reflecting and Shaping the World of
Mathematics Education,
Roma (Italy), 5-8 March 2008, Accademia dei Lincei and Istituto dell
Enciclopedia Italiana.

More information :
http://www.unige.ch/math/EnsMath/Rome2008

If you are interested in participating in a working group,
please contact one of its chairs. It will also possible to attend
the symposium as a free participant, without making a presentation. In
that case, apply to :
marta.menghini at uniroma1.it
after September 2007.

Ferdinando Arzarello
Chair, International Program Committee

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6. AFRICAN MATHEMATICAL UNION COMMISSION ON THE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS
IN AFRICA

Two new books are published by the African Mathematical Union Commission
on the History of Mathematics in Africa:

1. African Doctorates in Mathematics: A Catalogue.
This volume presents a catalogue of over 2000 doctoral theses (in
historical order since 1923) by Africans in all fields of mathematics,
including applied mathematics, mathematics education and history of
mathematics.

2. Paulus Gerdes & Ahmed Djebbar: Mathematics in African History and
Cultures: An annotated Bibliography. New edition.
This volume constitutes an updated and extended version of the
bibliography published under the same name in 2004 by the African
Mathematical Union.

These books are available (both in print and as download) from
http://www.lulu.com  by  going to http://stores.lulu.com/pgerdes.
The books (print) will also become soon available from
amazon.com and other retailers / bookshops.

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7. ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER OF ICSU

The Electronic Newsletter of ICSU (International Council for Science)
"ICSU Insight" provides some background information about ICSU. IMU is
a member of ICSU.
If you are interested in receiving ICSU Insight by e-mail, register at
http://www.icsu.org/3_mediacentre/INSIGHT_1.html

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8. SUBSCRIBING TO IMU-NET

There are two ways of subscribing to IMU-Net:

1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/IMU-Net with a Web browser and go
to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to IMU-Net online.

2. Send an e-mail to imu-net-request at mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe

In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. IMU will not use the list of IMU-Net
addresses for any purpose other than sending IMU-Net, and will not
make it available to others.

Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/Publications/Newsletter/archive/index

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