»mathematics«

Impact factors and citation indices are a somewhat gold standard to measure quality and productivity of a scientist. But critics question the validity of these measures. Now, Jürgen Kaube writes in FAZ (24.7.2008) about a statistical report on impact factors commissioned by the International Mathematical Union (among others). The conclusion is, the significance of these citation measures like the impact factor or the Hirsch index is poor, if not nil.

A group of researchers with the German physicist Dirk Helbing of the Technical University of Dresden studies crowd motion during mass events like the Hajj, sports events or music festivals (Physik Journal, June 2007). They have investigated the motion of pilgrims during the Hajj in the city of Mina of year 2006 and studied how - in the language of physics - the laminar flow of people change into turbulence with people possibly trampled to death. During the Hajj pilgrimage some three million people visit Mina to stone in a ritual the three jamarat walls. With the evidence of the researchers the whole site is being rebuilt, crowd flow, pilgrim access and movement changed.
Pictures and videos at
http://www.trafficforum.org/crowdturbulence

Jürgen Kaube is worried in a front page editorial for FAZ (6.1.2007) about the vanishing relevance of mathematics. Mathematics rules -- we suppose -- the world, but nobody remembers the simplest concepts from school. What's a vector? An infinite series? A polynomial? Complex numbers? Hyperbola? Median? Well, that's all from school curricula but forgotten a few years after leaving school. The point is, mathematics is lurking all around in your daily life. But who cares. Mathematics deserves more attention. It's a hard world because you realize soon whether you got it or not. There are true and false solutions. You have to understand the concepts precisely, and that's different to other fields -- take the arts -- where you can circumvent deficiencies.

Heinrich Hemme writes in FAZ (1.3.2006) about the placement puzzle Sudoku and the mathematics behind the game. Only recently a German and British mathematician solved the questions how many puzzle on a 9x9 grid are possible; it's a 22-digit number.

Kurt Gödel has been one of the important mathematicians of the 20th century. In two pieces for Neue Zürcher Zeitung (19.4.2006) Karl Sigmund remembers Gödel, his life and work. The Austrian mathematician was born 28.4.1906 and died 1978 as a professor at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton. There, he had a prolific exchange with Einstein. In the second article Karl Sigmund tries to explain Gödel's main contribution to mathematics. Some say it's the most important contribution in the last century, the incompleteness theorem.

Marcus du Sautoy writes in New Scientist (1.4.2006) about Swedish mathematician Lennart Carleson who won the Abel prize, besides the Fields medal the most prestigious award in mathematics. As Sautoy points out mathematicians may have got brilliant ideas during their full life span as the Lennart Carleson illustrates. By the time maths get even more complex that you have to know a whole bunch of tools to solve a problem. Hence, "mastering these techniques means that experience can count for as much as a brash, youthful assault on a problem," writes Sautoy. Thus, developing breakthrough ideas isn't restricted to mathematicians up to their 40s, as it's often seen.