Dr. E Krishnan's 60 Birthday Celebrations - A brief report

Dr. E Krishnan needs no introduction to the mathematics community in Kerala. He has been the driving force in bringing the changes we are seeing in the way in which mathematics is taught in schools as well as colleges in Kerala. His 60th birthday was celebrated by his students, collegues, family and well wishers on 30th August 2014 at Thiruvananthapuram. Please find a brief report of the function and some photos taken during the function.

Report as a PDF file (Updated on 14/9/2014 with a few corrections/additions)

Manjul Bhargava, a number theorist from Princeton University, is one of the four Fields Medalists

Manjul Bhargava and Subhash Khot, are among the eight winners of the prestigious International Mathematical Union awards

Two mathematicians of Indian origin, Manjul Bhargava and Subhash Khot, are among the eight winners of the prestigious awards of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) that were announced at the inaugural of the 9-day International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) which began today at Seoul, Republic of Korea. The President of Korea, Park Geun-hye, gave away the awards. 

Read full story http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/major-mathematics-awards-to-two-indian-origin-scientists/article6309293.ece?homepage=true

Did Srinivasa Ramanujan fail in math?

Societies need myths to live by, and a mathematical genius failing in an exam is precisely the kind of myth that makes life alluring

How did Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920), the mathematical genius, fare in his Intermediate examinations? Did he fail in mathematics? Or did he score a centum? Conflicting assertions float. Myths hover around geniuses and lend them an aura, and Ramanujan is no exception. 

Interestingly, the myth originated even during the mathematician’s lifetime. The Madras Times of April 6, 1919,published a profile titled ‘A Famous Madras Mathematician: Mr. S. Ramanujan, FRS’ on the occasion of his return to India from Cambridge. This contemporary sketch, notes for which the paper claimed were “chiefly collected from papers in the possession of the Madras Port Trust,” Ramanujan’s employer, stated that “In December 1907 … he appeared privately for the First Arts Examination and had the distinction of failing in all subjects, doubtless as a result of his illness.” (original emphasis) 

Read the full story from the "The Hindu" article here.

Russian mathematician Yakov G. Sinai receives the 2014 Abel Prize

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2014 to Yakov G. Sinai (78) of Princeton University, USA, and the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, "for his fundamental contributions to dynamical systems, ergodic theory, and mathematical physics". The President of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Nils Chr. Stenseth, announced the winner of the 2014 Abel Prize at the Academy in Oslo today, 26 March. Yakov G. Sinai will receive the Abel Prize from His Royal Highness The Crown Prince at an award ceremony in Oslo on 20 May.

The Abel Prize recognizes contributions of extraordinary depth and influence to the mathematical sciences and has been awarded annually since 2003. It carries a cash award of NOK 6,000,000 (about EUR 750,000 or USD 1 million).

Read more from the Abel Prize official website 

The sum of all positive integers

What do you think you get if you add 1+2+3+4+5+... all the way on up to infinity? Probably a massively huge number, right? Nope. You get a small negative number:

This is, by a wide margin, the most noodle-bending counterintuitive thing I have ever seen. Mathematician Leonard Euler actually proved this result in 1735, but the result was only made rigorous later and now physicists have been seeing this result actually show up in nature. Amazing. (thx, chris).

References:

Obtained from the webpage http://kottke.org/14/01/the-sum-of-all-positive-integers