Prompt: You are a great physicist, mathematician and inventor of all time. You obviously know the story of Archimedes, how he invented the method for determining the volume of an object and his joyful crying “Eureka!“. Can you please describe it in a way that even someone who has no knowledge of physics understand it clearly and find it very amusing. I mean, can you bring some fun to the story as well? Please take your time and write it in details. (more…)
In awarding Yale’s George Daniel Mostow its 2013 Wolf Foundation Prize in mathematics — one of the field’s premier global awards — the foundation offered this crisp assessment: “Few mathematicians,” it said, “can compete with the breadth, depth, and originality of his works.”
Here Mostow, an emeritus professor since 1998, talks about the English teacher who led him to a life in math, the pleasure of family, high-definition opera, and the Nth dimension — as well as the “eureka!” moment at a New Haven stoplight that secured him a place in the history of geometry.
When did it dawn on you that you wanted to be a professional mathematician?
In high school, mathematics was my favorite subject. I especially enjoyed challenging problems. But I did not know that mathematics was a profession. I am indebted to my high school English teacher who, in my senior year, called me up to his desk to ask about my career plans, and told me that his brother was a mathematician. I decided then and there that mathematics was for me.(more…)
Young technologists are looking to take the world by storm this weekend at the Imagine Cup 2012 Worldwide Finals in Sydney, Australia.
SYDNEY – Wrapped in the flags of their countries, the competitors climb onto the podium, beaming with joy as the cameras flash. They are young, passionate, business-savvy ambassadors of their field.
These aren’t soccer players or high jumpers, but they are no less competitors than the athletes seeking gold medals at the 2012 Summer Games in London. They are the planet’s premiere young technologists. And, to slightly alter an infamous movie line, they’ve come to change the world and chew bubblegum – and they’re all out of bubblegum. (more…)
