OTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY 1988 Steele Prizes page 965 ;I~ The AMS Centennial: Social and Mathematical Festivities page 970 SEPTEMBER 1988, VOLUME 35, NUMBER 7 Providence, Rhode Island, USA ISSN 0002-9920 Calendar of AMS Meetings and Conferences This calendar lists all meetings which have been approved prior to Mathematical Society in the issue corresponding to that of the Notices the date this issue of Notices was sent to the press. The summer which contains the program of the meeting. Abstracts should be sub­ and annual meetings are joint meetings of the Mathematical Associ­ mitted on special forms which are available in many departments of ation of America and the American Mathematical Society. The meet­ mathematics and from the headquarters office of the Society. Ab­ ing dates which fall rather far in the future are subject to change; this stracts of papers to be presented at the meeting must be received is particularly true of meetings to which no numbers have been as­ at the headquarters of the Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on signed. Programs of the meetings will appear in the issues indicated or before the deadline given below for the meeting. Note that the below. First and supplementary announcements of the meetings will deadline for abstracts for consideration for presentation at special have appeared in earlier issues. sessions is usually three weeks earlier than that specified below. For Abstracts of papers presented at a meeting of the Society are pub­ additional information, consult the meeting announcements and the lished in the journal Abstracts of papers presented to the American list of organizers of special sessions. Meetings Abstract Program Meeting # Date Place Deadline Issue 845 * October 28-30, 1988 Lawrence, Kansas Expired October 846 * November 12-13, 1988 Claremont, California Expired October 847 * January 11-14, 1989 Phoenix, Arizonat October 12 ** December (95th Annual Meeting) * April 15-16, 1989 Worcester, Massachusetts January 25 March * May 19-20, 1989 Chicago, Illinois March 1 April August 7-10, 1989 Boulder, Colorado May 16 July I August (92nd Summer Meeting) October 21-22, 1989 Hoboken, New Jersey August 30 October October 27-28, 1989 Muncie, Indiana August 30 October January 17-20, 1990 Louisville, Kentucky (96th Annual Meeting) January 16-19, 1991 San Francisco, California (97th Annual Meeting) * Please refer to page 1052 for listing of special sessions t Preregistration/Housing deadline is November 10 ** MAA Contributed Paper deadline is September 30 Deadlines October Issue November Issue December Issue January Issue Classified Ads* Aug 31, 1988 Oct 3, 1988 Oct 31, 1988 Nov 30, 1988 News Items Sept 6, 1988 Oct 7, 1988 Nov 4, 1988 Nov 25, 1988 Meeting Announcements** Aug 24, 1988 Sept 26, 1988 Oct 24, 1988 Nov 17, 1988 * Please contact AMS Advertising Department for an Advertising Rate Card for display advertising deadlines. ** For material to appear in the Mathematical Sciences Meetings and Conferences section. OTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY ARTICLES DEPARTMENTS 965 1988 Steele Prizes Awarded 963 Letters to the Editor The 1988 Steele Prizes were awarded at the Society's ninety-first Summer 1002 News and Announcements Meeting and Centennial Celebration in Providence to Sigurdur Helgason for expository writing, to Gian-Carlo Rota for a fundamental paper, and to Deane 1007 NSF News and Reports Montgomery for his mathematical career. 1013 News from Washington 1018 Acknowledgement 970 The AMS Centennial: Social and Mathematical Festivities of Contributions An array of festivities, both mathematical and social, made this 1Oath birthday celebration a very special event. 1040 1988 AMS Elections 1041 Election Information 1043 Meetings and Conferences of the AMS (Listing) FEATURE COLUMNS 1055 Mathematical Sciences Meetings and Conferences 1061 New AMS Publications 974 Inside the AMS: Report on the Council Meeting, August 1988 1065 AMS Reports and In order to better acquaint members with the important role the Council plays Communications in the Society, this report on the most recent Council meeting is presented. Recent Appointments, 1065 976 Computers and Mathematicians Jon Barwise Statistics on Women Mathematicians, 1065 Six of the most popular mathematical computer programs on the market are Officers of the Society, 1067 reviewed by Barry Simon and Robert Wilson in their article, "Supercalculators on the PC." 1078 Miscellaneous Personal Items, 1078 Deaths, 1078 1080 Visiting Mathematicians (Supplement) 1082 Backlog of Mathematics Research Journals 1085 New Members of the AMS 1087 Classified Advertising 1107 Forms MR and CMP on CD-ROM AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY One of the highlights of the Centennial Celebration in Providence was the AMS preview of a new information medium: a CD-ROM (Compact Disc­ Read Only Memory) which contains records from Mathematical Reviews EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Robert J. Blattner, Ralph P. Boas (MR) and Current Mathematical Publications ( CMP). The actual CD-ROM, Lucy J. Garnett, Mary Ellen Rudin called MathSci Disc, will be available to the public in January 1989 and Nancy K. Stanton, Steven H. Weintraub will contain all reviews and abstracts from MR 1985 through 1988 and over Everett Pitcher (Chairman) 50,000 entries from CMP. This first release in January will be followed by semi-annual discs that will incorporate the current six months of MR and MANAGING EDITOR CMP into material on the previous disc. Although a CD-ROM has tremen­ James A. Voytuk dous storage capacity, as more and more records are added the disc becomes ASSOCIATE EDITORS full, and eventually new discs will be started which include a portion of the Ronald L. Graham, Special Articles previous CD-ROM. Archival discs with MR records from years before 1985 Jeffrey C. Lagarlas, Spec/a/ Articles may also be produced in the future. SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION The CD-ROM technology is essentially the same as that used for audio com­ Subscription prices for Volume 35 (1988) are pact discs, where information is encoded on the disc in a digitized form $1051ist; $84 institutional member; $63 individual through a series of pits impressed into the disc. A "reader" retrieves the dig­ member. (The subscription price for members Is ital information by using the scattered light from a laser focused on the pits. Included In the annual dues.) A late charge of A CD-ROM is only 4 3/4 inches across, but it holds up to 500 megabytes 1Oo/o of the subscription price will be imposed upon orders received from nonmembers after of data, which is the equivalent of about 275,000 pages of printed material. January 1 of the subscription year. Add for post· It is this storage capacity that makes it possible to put four years, or almost age: Surface delivery outside the United States five linear feet, of MR on a single disc and still leave room for software and and lndia-$1 0; to lndia-$20; expedited deliv· indexes that will allow for quick and efficient searching of the information. ery to destinations in North America-$15; else­ A CD-ROM, like a magnetic disk, provides random access to the data, and where-$38. Subscriptions and orders for AMS publications should be addressed to the Amer­ the search software will allow an individual to find items by using a variety ican Mathematical Society, P.O. Box 1571, An· of descriptors that would identify a particular item. In the case of MR these nex Station, Providence, Rl 02901-9930. All or­ identifiers will include: author names, classification codes, words in the ti­ ders must be prepaid. tle of an article or book, words from the reviewer abstract, journal names, publishers, and other data elements. The only hardware necessary to use a ADVERTISING CD-ROM is a PC, such as an IBM-AT with a hard disk, and a CD-ROM Notices publishes situations wanted and classi­ fied advertising, and display advertising for pub­ reader. Shortly, software and hardware will be available for connecting a lishers and academic or scientific organizations. reader to a Macintosh. Copyright@ 1988 by the American Mathemat· The MathSci Disc will be produced for the AMS by SilverPlatter, a com­ lcal Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. pany specializing in information products on CO-ROM's. SilverPlatter will The paper used in this journal is acid-free and provide search software and do the indexing of the MR and CMP files, and falls within the guidelines established to ensure they will carry the product through to the actual cutting of the master disc permanence and durability.@ and the duplication of copies for distribution. SilverPlatter will also provide [Notices of the American Mathematical Society is documentation and toll-free help services to the user. Records selected from published ten times a year (January, February, MathSci Disc can be downloaded to the microcomputer for editing or can be March, April, May/June, July/August, Septem­ processed with TEX software to convert the records into the typeset form in ber, October, November, December) by the Amer­ ican Mathematical Society at 201 Charles Street, which they appear in MR, with the actual mathematical expressions. Between Providence, Rl 02904. Second class postage paid the semi-annual updates of MathSci Disc, the online service of MathSci from at Providence, Rl and additional mailing offices. the vendors BRS, DIALOG, and ESA, can be used to search the most recent POSTMASTER: Send address change notices to monthly records which are concurrent with the printed journal. Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Membership and Sales Department, American The MathSci Disc will be distributed by the AMS, through an annual lease Mathematical Society, P. 0. Box 6248, Provi· arrangement, to both institutions and individuals, with substantial discounts dence, Rl 02940.] Publication here of the Soci· to individuals at subscribing institutions. More information about the pricing ety's street address, and the other information in structure for MathSci Disc can be found on page 1039.