## US leads but China rises in latest Top500 supercomputer list

This annual Supercomputing conference is a showcase for the field of high-performance scientific and mathematical computing, featuring a first-rate peer-reviewed technical program, tutorials, workshops, and a massive exhibit hall where universities, national laboratories and computer vendors from around the world exhibit their research, hardware and software. This year’s conference, SC18, which is being held in Dallas, Texas, has attracted well over 10,000 attendees. The conference is co-sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

Awards

Four prestigious professional society awards are presented at the SC18 conference. This

Continue reading US leads but China rises in latest Top500 supercomputer list

## Simple proofs: The impossibility of trisection

MathJax TeX Test PageMathJax.Hub.Config({tex2jax: {inlineMath: [[‘$’,’$’], [‘\$$‘,’\$$’]]}});

Credit: Vatican Museum

Introduction: Ancient Greek mathematicians developed the methodology of “ruler-and-compass” constructions: if one is given only a ruler (without marks) and a compass, what objects can be constructed as a result of a finite set of operations? While they achieved many successes, three problems confounded their efforts: (1) squaring the circle; (2) trisecting an angle; and (3) duplicating a cube (i.e., constructing a cube whose volume is twice that of a given cube). Indeed, countless mathematicians through the ages have attempted to solve these problems, and countless incorrect “proofs” have been

Continue reading Simple proofs: The impossibility of trisection

## Simple proofs: The fundamental theorem of algebra

MathJax TeX Test PageMathJax.Hub.Config({tex2jax: {inlineMath: [[‘$’,’$’], [‘\$$‘,’\$$’]]}});Introduction:

Credit: MathIsFun.com

The fundamental theorem of algebra is the assertion that every polynomial with real or complex coefficients has at least one complex root. An immediate extension of this result is that every polynomial of degree $n$ with real or complex coefficients has exactly $n$ complex roots, when counting individually any repeated roots.

This theorem has a long, tortuous history. In 1608, Peter Roth wrote that a polynomial equation of degree $n$ with real coefficients may have $n$ solutions, but offered no proof. Leibniz and Nikolaus Bernoulli both asserted that quartic polynomials of

Continue reading Simple proofs: The fundamental theorem of algebra

## Simple proofs: The irrationality of pi

MathJax TeX Test PageMathJax.Hub.Config({tex2jax: {inlineMath: [[‘$’,’$’], [‘\$$‘,’\$$’]]}});Introduction:

Credit: fjordstone.com

Mankind has been fascinated with $\pi$, the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, for at least 2500 years. Ancient Hebrews used the approximation 3 (see 1 Kings 7:23 and 2 Chron. 4:2). Babylonians used the approximation 3 1/8. Archimedes, in the first rigorous analysis of $\pi$, proved that 3 10/71 < $\pi$ < 3 1/7, by means of a sequence of inscribed and circumscribed triangles. Later scholars in India (where decimal arithmetic was first developed, at least by 300 CE), China and the Middle East computed $\pi$

Continue reading Simple proofs: The irrationality of pi

## Simple proofs of great theorems

Euler’s identity Credit: Redbubble.com

Mathematics and beauty

Modern mathematics is one of the most enduring edifices created by humankind, a magnificent form of art and science that all too few have the opportunity of appreciating. The great British mathematician G.H. Hardy wrote, “Beauty is the first test; there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.” Mathematician-philosopher Bertrand Russell added: “Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music,

Continue reading Simple proofs of great theorems

## New books and articles on the “great silence”

Credit: NASA

The great silence

As we have explained in previous Math Scholar blogs (see, for example, MS1 and MS2), the perplexing question why the heavens are silent even though, from all evidence, the universe is teeming with potentially habitable exoplanets, continues to perplex and fascinate scientists. It is one of the most significant questions of modern science, with connections to mathematics, physics, astronomy, cosmology, biology and philosophy.

In spite of the glib dismissals that are often presented in public venues and (quite sadly) in writings by some professional scientists (see MS1 and MS2 for examples and rejoinders), there

Continue reading New books and articles on the “great silence”

## Does the string theory multiverse really exist?

Credit: Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics

String theory, fine tuning and the multiverse

String theory is the name for the theory of mathematical physics which proposes that physical reality is based on exceedingly small “strings” and “branes,” embedded in 10- or 11-dimensional space. String theory has been proposed as the long-sought “theory of everything,” because it appears to unite relativity and quantum theory, and also because it is so “beautiful.”

Yet in spite of decades of effort, by thousands of brilliant mathematical physicists, the field has yet to produce specific experimentally testable predictions. What’s more, hopes that string theory

Continue reading Does the string theory multiverse really exist?

## The 2018 Fields Medalists honored

Every four years the Fields Institute of Toronto, Canada announces its Fields Medal recipients. This year’s recipients are Caucher Birkar, Alessio Figali, Akshay Venkatesh and Peter Scholze.

The Fields Institute announces its awardees at the every-four-years International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) meeting, which this year is being held in Rio de Janeiro. The awards, which are made to a maximum of four exceptional mathematicians under the age of 40, are often considered the “Nobel Prize” of Mathematics.

Here is some information on this year’s awardees and their work:

Caucher Birkar. Birkar was born and raised in a very poor farming

Continue reading The 2018 Fields Medalists honored

## The rise of pay-to-publish journals and the decline of peer review

Pi nonsense in peer-reviewed journals

In a previous Math Scholar blog, we lamented the decline of peer review, as evidenced by the surprising number of papers, published in supposedly professional, peer-reviewed journals, claiming that Pi is not the traditional value 3.1415926535…, but instead is some other value. In the 12 months since that blog was published, other papers of this most regrettable genre have appeared.

As a single example of this genre, the author of a 2015 paper, which appeared in the International Journal of Engineering Sciences and Research Technology, states, “The area and circumference of circle has been

## Does beautiful mathematics lead physics astray?

Introduction

In a new book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, Sabine Hossenfelder reflects on her career as a theoretical physicist. She acknowledges that her colleagues have produced “mind-boggling” new theories. But she is deeply troubled by the fact that so much work in theoretical physics today is disconnected from empirical reality, yet is excused because the theories themselves, and the mathematics behind them, are “too beautiful not to be true.”

Hossenfelder notes that there have been numerous instances in the past when scientists’ over-reliance on “beauty” has led it astray. Newton’s clockwork universe, with seemingly self-evident

Continue reading Does beautiful mathematics lead physics astray?