From The Times newspaper: "Ask Your Father: What's the biggest number in the world?"

A story from The Times newspaper from the 20th of June 2008, featuring some thoughts of Oxford mathematician and public-communication expert Prof. Marcus du Sautoy on how to answer the age-old problem of explaining large numbers and infinity to children.

Lifetime Achievement prize for George Lusztig

From the American Mathematical Society web pages:

George Lusztig of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has received the 2008 AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Presented annually by the American Mathematical Society, the Steele Prize is one of the highest distinctions in mathematics. The prize was awarded today [7th January 2008] at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego, California.

"The work of George Lusztig has entirely reshaped representation theory, and in the process changed much of mathematics," the prize citation states. "His work has touched widely separated parts of mathematics, reshaping them and knitting them together. He has built new bridges to combinatorics and algebraic geometry, solving classical problems in those disciplines and creating exciting new ones. This is a remarkable career, and as exciting to watch today as it was at the beginning more than thirty years ago."

The full citation may be found in the prize booklet (PDF), from page 46 onwards.

Many congratulations to Prof. Lusztig. I have personally been inspired by his work, especially on quantum groups. Indeed, my whole research career would likely not exist without him.

Two Lots of mathematical blogs

This blog now has its own blogroll (see sidebar), along with two new entries: the Secret Blogging Seminar and the n-Category Café. The first of these is mainly mathematical in content, the latter covering mathematics, physics and philosophy.

Update: (13/07/07, 11:21) I've added lots more blogs to the blogroll. Enjoy!

Plus Magazine

Plus Magazine is a project of the Millennium Mathematics Project, which aims to increase the public awareness of mathematics, particularly among young people. The magazine appears four times a year and the website is updated regularly with news from the world of mathematics, together with a blog. It is highly recommended for anyone who is interested in mathematics, professionally or not.

The introduction to quantum geometry described in a recent post is from the latest edition of Plus.

An introduction to quantum geometry

Quantum geometry describes attempts to find new versions of classical geometry suited one of the major tasks in modern physics: finding a model of the universe that describes both quantum mechanics and gravity. In the linked article, this subject is introduced and explained for the non-specialist, by means of an interview with Prof. Shahn Majid, of Queen Mary, University of London, who has contributed several of the mathematical and physical ideas involved.

Note: Prof. Majid was my doctoral supervisor; my work with him was on the structure of algebraic objects related to quantum geometry, in the field colloquially known as the theory of "quantum groups".