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FROM the President's Desk FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK Jacques Hurtubise, McGill University IN THIS ISSUE DANS CE NUMÉRO HOW ARE WE DOING? Editorial / Éditorial ...................2 This issue of the NOTES our large departments, with the medium size contains some quite moving ones shrinking by about 5%, and the small Book Review: tributes to Richard Kane; ones by 10%. Undergraduate mathematics Mathematics and Culture .........4 they depict the career of populations increased by about 15%, and Book Review: someone who had a deep the increases take place across the board, Impressive but uneven .............5 influence on our collective in large, medium and small universities; the destiny. I have fond memories of working interdisciplinary student numbers increased Brief Book Reviews ..................6 with Richard, in particular on a previous more, by about 45%. Education Notes .......................8 review of Mathematics in Canada, so it is perhaps appropriate that I write about some It is in the graduate populations that one Call for Nominations of the results of the latest one, which we are has the greatest surprises: MSc student Adrien Pouliot Award .............11 in the process of finalising, in particular as populations are up by 55%; PhD students have doubled in numbers; the number of Réunion d’été SMC 2011 Richard’s work allowed some of what we postdocs has gone up by about 130%. CMS Summer Meeting ............14 found to happen. These figures were a pleasant surprise to In Memoriam / En mémoire Part of the process this time was a survey of my friends in university administrations; what Jerrold E. Marsden ..................15 our departments, and some of the results wasn’t a surprise, as it is common to a large are rather interesting. Our enterprise is a range of disciplines, was the extent of faculty Let Me Take It Down renewal: about 50% of our university faculty The Mathematics Behind the large one- we have in our 58 departments Most Famous Edit in about 1050 tenure track mathematicians were hired in the last ten years. The age Rock ‘n’ Roll............................16 (excluding statisticians, who have their distribution of our faculty has become much own Society, and who, prompted by the more evenly spread than it was ten years In Memoriam / En mémoire NSERC long range plan, are doing their own ago, with about 25% younger than 40, 30% Richard Kane ..........................18 survey); these mathematicians teach about between 40 and 49, 25% between 50 and In Memoriam / En mémoire 6000 mathematics majors and honours 59, and 20% over 60. Albert Coleman ......................25 undergraduates, and another thousand or so in interdisciplinary programs; they have On the ever-present issue of research funding, Calendar of Events nine hundred Master’s students, and another the NSERC Discovery grant continues to be Calendrier des événements.....26 nine hundred doing the PhD; there are two the main game in town, representing 56 % hundred and fifty post-doctoral fellows. of research funding, though there might be Rates and deadlines some underreporting of other sources. The Tarifs et horaire ......................27 We have divided our departments into large other funding comes from other NSERC (20 or more tenure track math faculty), programs, provincial programs, university medium (10 to 19), and small (less than sources, industrial sources, and MITACS, 10). With this definition, there are 19 large in commensurate if not identical quantities. departments, 18 medium size ones, and 21 The total NSERC Discovery funding to our small. They have, respectively, 680, 250, mathematicians in 2010 was about 15M$, and 120 mathematics faculty. an increase of 40% over ten years; this funding was split between large, medium The survey requested data from 2000, as well and small universities in ratios of 78%, as from 2010, and there are some interesting 18% and 4%. The overall ratio of grantees trends. Over ten years, the number of to faculty is 71%, with 82% at the large professors in our departments has increased by 6%; this growth has been concentrated in français page 13 Continued on page 12 VOLUME 43 NO. 1 FEBRUARY / FÉVRIER 2011 by Robert Dawson EDITORIAL Saint Mary’s University, Halifax On a Talk Not Attended I just got back from the CMS For the immediate future, our contemporary science winter meeting in Vancouver. and technology appear to be safe. But we have The plenary talks were excellent, to be cautious. Ancient manuscripts sometimes and I felt I had learned a (though not always) survived centuries of neglect; lot about several interesting and the many libraries of printed books and subjects that had somehow journals of the last century made it very unlikely escaped my attention until that any catastrophe would destroy all copies of then. The sessional talks required, as usual, a work. It is not immediately obvious that the some difficult choices. I mainly attended the digital technology towards which we are moving is discrete mathematics session, but the range of as robust. Records are stored on a relatively small appealing talks was wide enough that I often number of servers, and software is vulnerable to had to decide between two or more options. virus attacks. Computers, inordinately complex, are usually designed for a comparatively short There was a talk about recent theories about the working life, and irreplaceable except by the Antikythera Mechanism that I particularly regret concerted efforts of a host of high-tech industries. missing. This strange artifact, dating back to classical What would it take for today’s science to follow the Greece, appears to be the remnants of an ancient Antikythera computer into oblivion? And what can astronomical analog computer. What is left includes we do to ensure this does not happen? several badly corroded metal gears. It has been studied for about half a century; researchers are starting to make real progress in discovering its secrets. NOTES DE LA SMC CMS NOTES The fascination, of course, is that there was a Les Notes de la SMC sont publiés par la So- The CMS Notes is published by the Canadian ciété mathématique du Canada (SMC) six fois Mathematical Society (CMS) six times a year period of many centuries after its fabrication when l’an (février, mars/avril, juin, septembre, (February, March/April, June, September, not only the art of its manufacture, but even the octobre/novembre et décembre). October/November and December). knowledge that such a thing had ever been done, RÉDACTEU R S EN CHEF EDITO R S -IN-CHIEF was entirely lost. Usually, we think of technical Robert Dawson, Srinivasa Swaminathan Robert Dawson, Srinivasa Swaminathan progress as irreversible; a serious retrograde step [email protected] [email protected] such as this is contrary to our culture’s recent experience. Of course, some technologies have RÉDACTEU R -GÉ R ANT MANAGING EDITO R Johan Rudnick Johan Rudnick been effectively abandoned; dirigibles, horse- [email protected] [email protected] drawn carriages, commercial sailing ships, and slide rules are largely things of the past. In RÉDACTION CONT R IBUTING EDITO R S Éducation : John Grant McLoughlin Education: John Grant McLoughlin Atlantic Canada, even passenger trains are not et Jennifer Hyndman and Jennifer Hyndman as widespread as they used to be. But this is [email protected] [email protected] Critiques littéraires: Keith Johnson Book Reviews: Keith Johnson in a sense a voluntary and reversible choice. [email protected] [email protected] Réunions : Gertrud Jeewanjee Meetings: Gertrud Jeewanjee In mathematics, too, there are some partially lost [email protected] [email protected] Assistante à la rédaction : Laura Alyea Editorial Assistant: Laura Alyea arts. Some methods have been abandoned as Note aux auteurs : indiquer la section choisie The Editors welcome articles, letters and an- insufficiently rigorous or inefficient (would anybody pour votre article et le faire parvenir au Notes nouncements, which can be sent to the CMS today choose to approach orbital mechanics through de la SMC à l’adresse postale ou de courriel Notes at the address below. ci-dessous. Euclidean geometry as Newton did?) Some No responsibility for the views expressed by Les Notes de la SMC, les rédacteurs et la SMC authors is assumed by the CMS Notes, the areas (such as classical triangle geometry, or the ne peuvent être tenus responsables des opin- editors or the CMS. nineteenth-century “theory of functions” superseded ions exprimées par les auteurs. by algebraic geometry) have been more or less mined out. But, at present, to revisit these requires Canadian Mathematical Society - Société mathématique du Canada only a walk to the library, or an online search 209 - 1725 St. Laurent Blvd. Ottawa, ON K1G 3V4 Canada T: (613) 733-2662 F: (613) 733-8994 of Google Books or some other digital archive. [email protected] | www.smc.math.ca www.cms.math.ca They are not truly lost, just out of our sight. ISSN :1193-9273 (imprimé/print) 1496-4295 (électronique/electronic) 2 VOLUME 43 NO. 1 FEBRUARY / FÉVRIER 2011 par Robert Dawson ÉDITORIAL Saint Mary’s University, Halifax Au sujet d’un exposé auquel je n’ai pas assisté Je reviens tout juste de la réunion d’hiver de une recherche en direct de Google Books ou la SMC, à Vancouver. Les discussions plénières de parcourir d’autres archives numériques. Ces étaient excellentes, et j’ai eu l’impression de m’être notions n’ont pas vraiment disparu; elles ne sont fort renseigné sur plusieurs sujets intéressants qui que mises de côté. m’étaient restés inconnus jusqu’ici. Les séances trimestrielles ont exigé, comme d’habitude, des Pour l’avenir rapproché, notre science et notre choix difficiles. J’ai assisté principalement à la technologie contemporaines semblent en sécurité.
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