DOCSLIB.ORG

March 1999 in This Issue

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
March 1999 in This Issue THE NEWSLETTER OF THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA Marcia P. Sward, March 1999 Executive Director, to Volume 19, Number 3 Leave MAA at Year's End Marcia Sward, who has served in the position of MAA Executive Director In This Issue since September 1989, informed the MAA's Board of Governors that she will 2 Cathleen step down at the end of 1999. "It is time Morawetz Re- for me to move on to new challenges," Marcia Sward, MAA Executive Director ceives National she said. "I have had wonderful oppor­ ward to laying the foundation for some Medal of Science tunities at the MAA, as well as a variety of programs to deal with. In the remain­ new and exciting directions for the ing year of my directorship, I look for- MAA of the future." 2 MAAAwards Sward continued on page 6 From San Anto- Focus on the Future: A nio New President Looks Ahead 3 Secretary's Tom Banchoff Report On the last day of the San Antonio meetings I symbolically crossed out the 4 Contributed suffix "-elect" on my name tag as I took Papers for on the role of MAA president for the Providence next two years. There is nothing like a national meeting to focus attention on the breadth of our organization, and 6 1999 Wolf to indicate challenges and opportuni­ Tom Banchoff, MAA President Prize Award ties for the future. I am very happy to be able to attend sessions and commit­ Winners share some of my excitement about the tee meetings that highlighted some of years ahead. the things I think are most important 10 New Stats Work- One of the comments I heard most of­ for our Association and for our profes­ ten at the national meeting was that sion. Anyone attending a different set shop Slated for of events would probably come up with Hope College there were just too many good things to go to. That's the kind of complaint his or her own list of favorite topics, but we like to hear. In those last few days I would like to share a few of mine. before I assumed office, I was lucky to So many things have changed over the past ten years that it is imperative that The Mathematical Association of America Postage paid at we bring this information up to date. 1529 Eighteenth St., NW Washington, DC and Fortunately, a number of excellent new additional mailing Washington, DC 20036 offices model programs have appeared, at the same time that there has been in­ creased use of adjunct faculty, often in situations with little support, low pay, and minimal benefits. A joint MAA­ AMS committee is hard at work to ad­ dress current issues and concerns, and I applaud their efforts. (Please contact President continued on page 9 FOCUS March 1999 Cathleen S. Morawetz Becomes First Woman to Re­ FOCUS ceive National Medal of Science for Mathematics FOCUS is published by the Mathematical Cathleen Synge Morawetz, former Association of America in January, February, March, April, May/June,August! President of the American Mathemati­ September, October, November, and cal Society and professor emerita at December. NYU's Courant Institute, has been awarded the National Medal of Science. Editor: Harry Waldman, MAA; She is the first woman to receive the [email protected] medal for work in mathematics, specifi­ Managing Editor: Carol Baxter, MAA cally for her pioneering research in [email protected] partial differential equations and wave Please address advertising inquiries to: propogation applications for aerody­ Carol Baxter, MAA; [email protected] namics, acoustics, and optics. She is one of nine scientists to receive the 1998 President: Thomas Banchoff, Brown award, the nation's highest scientific Cathleen Synge Morawetz University honor. First Vice-President: Anita Solow, dium. It provides the framework for Randolph-Macon Woman's College Her work in mathematics has allowed analyzing the many techniques for re­ engineers to focus on what matters in mote sensing, including ultrasound and Second Vice-President: Ed Dubinsky, the design of airplane wings: the mini­ radar. Georgia State University mizing of shock waves. In the late 1950s, Morawetz, 75, who was born in Canada Secretary: Martha Siegel, Towson she demonstrated that shock waves are and became a u.S. citizen in 1950, called University inevitable-and thus cannot be elimi­ nated-if a plane moves close to the her award "an occasion of great mo­ Treasurer: Gerald J. Porter, University of speed of sound, no matter how wings ment for me. I am filled with gratitude Pennsylvania are designed. to all those-and there were a great Executive Director: Marcia P. Sward many-who helped me over many Her mathematical work has also con­ years." Her biggest wish is that her Associate Executive Director and Direc­ tributed to the theory of scattering, award will motivate more women to tor of Publications and Electronic Ser­ which deals with how waves interact study mathematics.• vices: Donald J. Albers with obstacles or changes in the me- Letters to the editor should be addressed to Harry Waldman, MAA, 1529 Eighteenth MAA Awards from San Antonio: Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036. Subscription and membership questions The List of Winners should be directed to the MAA Customer Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo David Kullman, Ohio Section Service Center, 800-331-1622; e-mail: Awards for Distinguished College or Marcellus Waddill, Southeastern [email protected]; (301) 617 -7800 (outside University Teaching of Mathematics: Section U.S. and Canada); fax: (301) 206-9789. FOCUS is a benefit of MAA membership. Joel V. Brawley, Clemson University The subscription price to individual Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Robert W. Case, Northeastern members is $6.00, which is included in the Award for Distinguished Service to University annual dues. Mathematics: Joan Hutchinson, Macalester College Copyright © 1999 by the Mathematical Leonard Gillman Association of America (Incorporated). Chauvenet Priu: Educational institutions may reproduce AMS-MAA-SIAM Frank and Brennie Michael I. Rosen, Brown University, articles for their own use, but not for sale, Morgan Priu for Outstanding R£search in for "Niels Hendrik Abel and Equa­ provided that the following citation is used: Mathematics by an Undergraduate tions of the Fifth Degree" in the "Reprinted with permission of FOCUS , the Student newsletter of the Mathematical Association American Mathematical Monthly 1995, of America (Incorporated)." pp. 495-505. Daniel Biss (winner) Periodicals postage paid at Washington, DC Certificates of Meritorious Service: Aaron Archer (honorable mention) and additional mailing offices. Billy E. Rhoades, Indiana Section JPBM Communications Award: Postmaster: Send address changes to the Charles Alexander, Louisiana­ Ian Stewart MAA, P.O. Box 90973, Washington, DC Mississippi Section 20090-0973. JPBM Special Communications Award: Randall Heckman, Nebraska-South­ ISSN: 0731-2040; Printed in the United east South Dakota Section John Lynch and Simon Singh States of America. .. ....4O For further details go to MAA OnLine <www.maa.org> f"J March 1999 FOCUS Secretary's Report: Much Ado at the MAA This Past Year Martha J. Siegel of the Executive and Finance Commit­ the Baylor School in Chattanooga, TN tees. The revision of the Bylaws to re­ to be Governor-at-Large, High School flect the merger will be presented to the Teachers-each for a term of three Board in July. This was recommended years. by an ad hoc committee chaired by Ri­ We welcome Underwood Dudley to the chard Anderson. Board. He is Editor of The College Math­ We welcome Titu Andreescu as Direc­ ematics Journal. And we thank Bart tor of the American Mathematical Com­ Braden for his work as editor, Board petitions (AMC) and thank Walter member, and Executive Committee This has been an exciting year for the Mientka for his accomplishments in the member. He turned out a beautiful MAA. There has been a lot of activity many years he served as director. Walter journal and worked hard for the Asso­ in the projects, task forces, and com­ has been given the title Director Emeri­ ciation for the last five years. mittees that carry much of the tus of the AMC. He is now serving as Association's work. Reading the Sec­ Committee Work the Executive Director of IMO USA tions' newsletters, I know that a similar 2001. Many committees are working to im­ level of activity is taking place on the prove the relationship of the MAA to local level. And the staff at headquar­ At its January meeting, the Board voted graduate students and part-time and ters helps to bring our many ideas to to add another test to the competitions adjunct faculty. A small ad hoc commit­ fruition. specifically for 9th and 10th graders. tee had a session for department chairs, After a trial period of three years, the Marcia Sward has announced her inten­ particularly for departments in liberal competition for 9th and 10th graders tion to step down as Executive Direc­ arts colleges, comprehensive universi­ will be reviewed. tor at the end of 1999. Her leadership ties, and two-year colleges. as Executive Director over the past ten The Committee on Industrial and Gov­ More than fifty people attended and years, and as Associate Executive Direc­ ernment Mathematicians, chaired by clamored for more sessions at both tor before that will have meant 15 years Michael Monticino of the University of summer and winter meetings. We are at the MAA. It is hard to imagine the North Texas, sponsored a very success­ cooperating with the AMS in studying MAA without Marcia at the helm. ful reception at the San Antonio meet­ the role of teaching assistants and part­ ings. The committee's survey of nonaca­ The Search Committee for a new Ex­ time faculty (chaired by Suzanne demic members of the MAA is excel­ ecutive Director, chaired by former Lenhart) and, again with the AMS, we lent and will be helpful as we consider President Kenneth A.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • President's Report
    AWM ASSOCIATION FOR WOMEN IN MATHE MATICS Volume 36, Number l NEWSLETTER March-April 2006 President's Report Hidden Help TheAWM election results are in, and it is a pleasure to welcome Cathy Kessel, who became President-Elect on February 1, and Dawn Lott, Alice Silverberg, Abigail Thompson, and Betsy Yanik, the new Members-at-Large of the Executive Committee. Also elected for a second term as Clerk is Maura Mast.AWM is also pleased to announce that appointed members BettyeAnne Case (Meetings Coordi­ nator), Holly Gaff (Web Editor) andAnne Leggett (Newsletter Editor) have agreed to be re-appointed, while Fern Hunt and Helen Moore have accepted an extension of their terms as Member-at-Large, to join continuing members Krystyna Kuperberg andAnn Tr enk in completing the enlarged Executive Committee. I look IN THIS ISSUE forward to working with this wonderful group of people during the coming year. 5 AWM ar the San Antonio In SanAntonio in January 2006, theAssociation for Women in Mathematics Joint Mathematics Meetings was, as usual, very much in evidence at the Joint Mathematics Meetings: from 22 Girls Just Want to Have Sums the outstanding mathematical presentations by women senior and junior, in the Noerher Lecture and the Workshop; through the Special Session on Learning Theory 24 Education Column thatAWM co-sponsored withAMS and MAA in conjunction with the Noether Lecture; to the two panel discussions thatAWM sponsored/co-sponsored.AWM 26 Book Review also ran two social events that were open to the whole community: a reception following the Gibbs lecture, with refreshments and music that was just right for 28 In Memoriam a networking event, and a lunch for Noether lecturer Ingrid Daubechies.
    [Show full text]
  • RM Calendar 2017
    Rudi Mathematici x3 – 6’135x2 + 12’545’291 x – 8’550’637’845 = 0 www.rudimathematici.com 1 S (1803) Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja RM132 (1878) Agner Krarup Erlang Rudi Mathematici (1894) Satyendranath Bose RM168 (1912) Boris Gnedenko 1 2 M (1822) Rudolf Julius Emmanuel Clausius (1905) Lev Genrichovich Shnirelman (1938) Anatoly Samoilenko 3 T (1917) Yuri Alexeievich Mitropolsky January 4 W (1643) Isaac Newton RM071 5 T (1723) Nicole-Reine Etable de Labrière Lepaute (1838) Marie Ennemond Camille Jordan Putnam 2002, A1 (1871) Federigo Enriques RM084 Let k be a fixed positive integer. The n-th derivative of (1871) Gino Fano k k n+1 1/( x −1) has the form P n(x)/(x −1) where P n(x) is a 6 F (1807) Jozeph Mitza Petzval polynomial. Find P n(1). (1841) Rudolf Sturm 7 S (1871) Felix Edouard Justin Emile Borel A college football coach walked into the locker room (1907) Raymond Edward Alan Christopher Paley before a big game, looked at his star quarterback, and 8 S (1888) Richard Courant RM156 said, “You’re academically ineligible because you failed (1924) Paul Moritz Cohn your math mid-term. But we really need you today. I (1942) Stephen William Hawking talked to your math professor, and he said that if you 2 9 M (1864) Vladimir Adreievich Steklov can answer just one question correctly, then you can (1915) Mollie Orshansky play today. So, pay attention. I really need you to 10 T (1875) Issai Schur concentrate on the question I’m about to ask you.” (1905) Ruth Moufang “Okay, coach,” the player agreed.
    [Show full text]
  • Homogenization 2001, Proceedings of the First HMS2000 International School and Conference on Ho- Mogenization
    in \Homogenization 2001, Proceedings of the First HMS2000 International School and Conference on Ho- mogenization. Naples, Complesso Monte S. Angelo, June 18-22 and 23-27, 2001, Ed. L. Carbone and R. De Arcangelis, 191{211, Gakkotosho, Tokyo, 2003". On Homogenization and Γ-convergence Luc TARTAR1 In memory of Ennio DE GIORGI When in the Fall of 1976 I had chosen \Homog´en´eisationdans les ´equationsaux d´eriv´eespartielles" (Homogenization in partial differential equations) for the title of my Peccot lectures, which I gave in the beginning of 1977 at Coll`egede France in Paris, I did not know of the term Γ-convergence, which I first heard almost a year after, in a talk that Ennio DE GIORGI gave in the seminar that Jacques-Louis LIONS was organizing at Coll`egede France on Friday afternoons. I had not found the definition of Γ-convergence really new, as it was quite similar to questions that were already discussed in control theory under the name of relaxation (which was a more general question than what most people mean by that term now), and it was the convergence in the sense of Umberto MOSCO [Mos] but without the restriction to convex functionals, and it was the natural nonlinear analog of a result concerning G-convergence that Ennio DE GIORGI had obtained with Sergio SPAGNOLO [DG&Spa]; however, Ennio DE GIORGI's talk contained a quite interesting example, for which he referred to Luciano MODICA (and Stefano MORTOLA) [Mod&Mor], where functionals involving surface integrals appeared as Γ-limits of functionals involving volume integrals, and I thought that it was the interesting part of the concept, so I had found it similar to previous questions but I had felt that the point of view was slightly different.
    [Show full text]
  • Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Awards for Distinguished College Or University Teaching of Mathematics
    MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA DEBORAH AND FRANKLIN TEPPER HAIMO AWARDS FOR DISTINGUISHED COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS In 1991, the Mathematical Association of America instituted the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics in order to honor college or university teachers who have been widely recognized as extraordinarily successful and whose teaching effectiveness has been shown to have had influence beyond their own institutions. Deborah Tepper Haimo was President of the Association, 1991–1992. Citation Jacqueline Dewar In her 32 years at Loyola Marymount University, Jackie Dewar’s enthusiasm, extraordinary energy, and clarity of thought have left a deep imprint on students, colleagues, her campus, and a much larger mathematical community. A student testifies, “Dr. Dewar has engaged the curious nature and imaginations of students from all disciplines by continuously providing them with problems (and props!), whose solutions require steady devotion and creativity….” A colleague who worked closely with her on the Los Angeles Collaborative for Teacher Excellence (LACTE) describes her many “watch and learn” experiences with Jackie, and says, “I continue to hear Jackie’s words, ‘Is this your best work?’—both in the classroom and in all professional endeavors. ...[she] will always listen to my ideas, ask insightful and pertinent questions, and offer constructive and honest advice to improve my work.” As a 2003–2004 CASTL (Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship
    [Show full text]
  • Mathematics to the Rescue Retiring Presidential Address
    morawetz.qxp 11/13/98 11:20 AM Page 9 Mathematics to the Rescue (Retiring Presidential Address) Cathleen Synge Morawetz should like to dedicate this lecture to my tial equation by a simple difference scheme and get- teacher, Kurt Otto Friedrichs. While many ting nonsense because the scheme is unstable. people helped me on my way professionally, The answers blow up. The white knights—Courant, Friedrichs played the central role, first as my Friedrichs, and Lewy (CFL)—would then step in thesis advisor and then by feeding me early and show them that mathematics could cure the Iresearch problems. He was my friend and col- problem. That was, however, not the way. But first, league for almost forty years. As is true among what is the CFL condition? It says [1] that for sta- friends, he was sometimes exasperated with me (I ble schemes the step size in time is limited by the was too disorderly), and sometimes he exasperated step size in space. The simplest example is the dif- me (he was just too orderly). However, I think we ference scheme for a solution of the wave equa- appreciated each other’s virtues, and I learned a tion great deal from him. utt uxx =0 Sometimes we had quite different points of − view. In his old age he agreed to be interviewed, on a grid that looks like the one in Figure 1. Sec- at Jack Schwartz’s request, for archival purposes. ond derivatives are replaced by second-order I was the interviewer. At one point I asked him differences with t = x.
    [Show full text]
  • Ssociation Fr Omen It Matic$
    ssociationf r omen i t matic$ Volume 15, Number 1 NEWSLETTER January-February 1985 PRESIDENT'S REPORT Changing Of the Guard. As of January 1985, Linda Keen, Professor of Mathematics at Lehman College, CUNY, becomes president of AWM. It is a pleasure to leave this office to her very capable direction. Linda has been active in AWM since its inception in the early "70"s. Last January she was the co-organizer, with Tilla Milnor, of the highly successful AWM panel in Louisville, Kentucky: Lipman Bets, A Mathematical Mentor. Good luck, Linda! Anaheim Meeting. AWM has an interesting program planned in conjunction with the joint meetings of the American Mathematical Society-Mathematical Association of America in Anaheim, California, January 7-13, 1985. On Thursday, January i0 from 10:15 to 11:15 there will be a panel discussion on "Nonacademic Careers in Mathematics" with Patricia Kenschaft, Montclalr State College, as organizer and moderator. Among the speakers will be Maria Klawe, IBM; Elizabeth Ralston, Inference Corporation; Bonnie Saunders, Star Consultants; and Margaret Waid, Sperry-Sun-Baroid. Following the panel will be the AWM Business Meeting. On Thursday night beginning at 5:45 AWM will host (it's become a neutral word) a cocktail party. On Friday January ii at 9:00 a.m. the Emmy Noether Lecture will be delivered by Professor Jane Cronin Scanlon of Rutgers University and Courant Institute. In the evening there will be a dinner in her honor; the sign-up sheet for dinner will be at the AWM table. Throughout the meeting the AWM table is the place to come to meet friends, old and new, and find out more about AWM.
    [Show full text]
  • Cathleen Synge Morawetz
    Cathleen Synge Morawetz On Tuesday, December 8, 1998, Cathleen Synge Morawetz became the first woman to receive the National Medal of Science for Mathematics. The honor was in recognition of her pioneering advances in partial differential equations and wave propagation leading to results in applications to aerodynamics, acoustics and optics. In the 1950s, she published three noteworthy papers in which she used new ingenious estimates for the solution of mixed nonlinear partial differential equations. Her work influenced engineers’ efforts to design airplane wings that minimize the impact of shock waves. Morawetz demonstrated that shock waves are inevitable if a plane moves fast enough, no matter how the wings are designed. Thus engineers now focus on minimizing rather than eliminating shock waves. In the early 1960s, she obtained important results in geometrical optics in connection with sonar and radar, showing that the approximation of acoustic and electromagnetic fields by geometrical optics becomes more accurate as the wavelength approaches zero. Her estimate of the error resulted in geometrical optics being placed on a firmer foundation. Cathleen Synge’s father was the mathematician John Lighton Synge, who in his 98 years of life made significant contributions to classical mechanics, geometrical optics, hydrodynamics, elasticity, electrical networks, differential geometry and the theory of relativity. Her mother Eleanor Mabel Allen Synge also studied mathematics. Morawetz is the grand niece of Irish playwright John Millington Synge, notable for his plays Riders of the Sea and The Playboy of the Western World. The Synge family traces its ancestry to the fifteenth century. The origin of the family name is described in the introduction to General Relativity: Papers in Honor of J.L.
    [Show full text]
  • RM Calendar 2015
    Rudi Mathematici x4–8228 x3+25585534 x2–34806653332 x+17895175197705=0 www.rudimathematici.com 1 G (1803) Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja RM132 (1878) Agner Krarup Erlang Rudi Mathematici (1894) Satyendranath Bose RM168 (1912) Boris Gnedenko 2 V (1822) Rudolf Julius Emmanuel Clausius (1905) Lev Genrichovich Shnirelman (1938) Anatoly Samoilenko 3 S (1917) Yuri Alexeievich Mitropolsky Gennaio 4 D (1643) Isaac Newton RM071 2 5 L (1723) Nicole-Reine Etable de Labrière Lepaute (1838) Marie Ennemond Camille Jordan Putnam 2000, A1 (1871) Federigo Enriques RM084 Sia A un numero reale positivo. Quali sono i possibili (1871) Gino Fano ∞ 6 M (1807) Jozeph Mitza Petzval valori di x , se x0, x1, … sono numeri positivi per cui ∑ i2 (1841) Rudolf Sturm =i 0 7 M (1871) Felix Edouard Justin Emile Borel ∞ ? (1907) Raymond Edward Alan Christopher Paley ∑ i A=x 8 G (1888) Richard Courant RM156 =i 0 (1924) Paul Moritz Cohn (1942) Stephen William Hawking Barzellette per élite 9 V (1864) Vladimir Adreievich Steklov È difficile fare giochi di parole con i cleptomani. (1915) Mollie Orshansky Prendono tutto alla lettera . 10 S (1875) Issai Schur (1905) Ruth Moufang 11 D (1545) Guidobaldo del Monte RM120 Titoli da un mondo matematico (1707) Vincenzo Riccati Con il passaggio ai nuovi test, le valutazioni crollano. (1734) Achille Pierre Dionis du Sejour Mondo matematico: Con il passaggio ai nuovi test, i 3 12 L (1906) Kurt August Hirsch risultati non sono più confrontabili. (1915) Herbert Ellis Robbins RM156 13 M (1864) Wilhelm Karl Werner Otto Fritz Franz Wien (1876) Luther Pfahler Eisenhart Alice rise: “È inutile che ci provi”, disse; “non si può (1876) Erhard Schmidt credere a una cosa impossibile”.
    [Show full text]
  • From the AMS Secretary
    From the AMS Secretary Society and delegate to such committees such powers as Bylaws of the may be necessary or convenient for the proper exercise American Mathematical of those powers. Agents appointed, or members of com- mittees designated, by the Board of Trustees need not be Society members of the Board. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to em- Article I power the Board of Trustees to divest itself of responsi- bility for, or legal control of, the investments, properties, Officers and contracts of the Society. Section 1. There shall be a president, a president elect (during the even-numbered years only), an immediate past Article III president (during the odd-numbered years only), three Committees vice presidents, a secretary, four associate secretaries, a Section 1. There shall be eight editorial committees as fol- treasurer, and an associate treasurer. lows: committees for the Bulletin, for the Proceedings, for Section 2. It shall be a duty of the president to deliver the Colloquium Publications, for the Journal, for Mathemat- an address before the Society at the close of the term of ical Surveys and Monographs, for Mathematical Reviews; office or within one year thereafter. a joint committee for the Transactions and the Memoirs; Article II and a committee for Mathematics of Computation. Section 2. The size of each committee shall be deter- Board of Trustees mined by the Council. Section 1. There shall be a Board of Trustees consisting of eight trustees, five trustees elected by the Society in Article IV accordance with Article VII, together with the president, the treasurer, and the associate treasurer of the Society Council ex officio.
    [Show full text]
  • View Front and Back Matter from the Print Issue
    Bulletin (New Series) of the American Mathematical Society This journal is devoted to articles of the following types: Research-Expository Surveys These are, by definition, papers that present a clear and insightful exposition of signif- icant aspects of contemporary mathematical research. Gibbs lectures, Progress in Math- ematics lectures, and retiring presidential addresses will be included in this section. Research Reports These are brief, timely reports on important mathematical developments. They are normally solicited and often written by a disinterested expert. Book Reviews Book Reviews are accepted for publication by invitation only. Unsolicited manuscripts will not be considered. Submission information. See Information for Authors at the end of this issue. Publisher Item Identifier. The Publisher Item Identifier (PII) appears at the top of the first page of each article published in this journal. This alphanumeric string of characters uniquely identifies each article and can be used for future cataloging, searching, and electronic retrieval. Postings to e-MATH. Articles are posted to e-MATH individually soon after proof is returned from authors and before appearing in an issue. Subscription information. Bulletin (New Series) of the American Mathematical Society is published quarterly. The Bulletin is also accessible electronically, starting with the January 1992 issue, from www.ams.org/publications/. For paper delivery, sub- scription prices for Volume 37 (2000) are $300 list, $240 institutional member, $180 in- dividual member. The subscription price for members is included in the annual dues. A late charge of 10% of the subscription price will be imposed upon orders received from nonmembers after January 1 of the subscription year.
    [Show full text]
  • Olga Ladyzhenskaya and Olga Oleinik: Two Great Women Mathematicians of the 20Th Century
    “olga-ladyz-73” — 2004/12/15 — 10:21 — page 621 — #1 LA GACETA DE LA RSME, Vol. 7.3 (2004), 621–628 621 Olga Ladyzhenskaya and Olga Oleinik: two great women mathematicians of the 20th Century Susan Friedlander and Barbara Keyfitz This short article celebrates the contributions of women to partial dif- ferential equations and their applications. Although many women have made important contributions to this field, we have seen the recent deaths of two of the brightest stars –Olga Ladyzhenskaya and Olga Oleinik– and in their memory we focus on their work and their lives. The two Olgas had much in common and were also very different. Both were born in the 1920s in the Soviet Union and grew up during very diffi- cult years and survived the awful death and destruction of the 2nd world war. Shortly after the war they were students together at Moscow State University where they were both advised by I.G. Petrovsky, whose influ- ence on Moscow mathematics at the time was unsurpassed. Both were much influenced by the famous seminar of I.M.Gelfand and both young women received challenging problems in PDE from Gelfand. In 1947 both Olga’s graduated from Moscow State University and then their paths di- verged. Olga Oleinik remained in Moscow and continued to be supervised by Petrovsky. Her whole career was based in Moscow and after receiv- ing her PhD in 1954 she became first a professor and ultimately the Head of the department of Differential Equations at Moscow State Uni- versity. Olga Ladyzhenskaya moved in 1947 to Leningrad and her career developed at the Steklov Institute there.
    [Show full text]
  • Happy 91St, Cathleen Synge Morawetz
    Happy 91st, Cathleen Synge Morawetz Allyn Jackson Cathleen Synge Morawetz is a was Cecilia Krieger, who fled Poland during World legendary and beloved figure War I and earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at the in mathematics. Renowned for University of Toronto, later becoming a professor her striking work in analysis, there. At a crucial moment in Cathleen’s final she has been an inspiration to year as a mathematics major at Toronto, Krieger many in the field, particularly encouraged Cathleen to attend graduate school to women, as well as a leader and promised to find funding. in the AMS and in the scientific Krieger came through on the promise, and profession more broadly. Her Cathleen became a graduate student at New York 91st birthday, which occurs in University. There were few women in the doctoral May of this year, is a fitting time program, but the atmosphere was supportive, to pay tribute to her life. partly because of the influence of Richard Courant: Her great-uncle was John Photo from AMS archives. He had been a strong mentor for Emmy Noether Millington Synge, the Irish play- in Göttingen and continued to encourage women Cathleen Synge wright best known for Playboy of in mathematics after he had emigrated to New Morawetz the Western World, which caused York. One of Morawetz’s first serious mathematical riots when it was first performed in 1907. Her father undertakings was the editing of the now-classic was John Lighton Synge, an Irish mathematician book Supersonic Flow and Shock Waves (1948) by who had a long career at the University of Toronto; Courant and Kurt Friedrichs.
    [Show full text]