Category: News Postings

We have learned that Daniel Quillen passed away recently. The message below was posted to a topology listserve by his widow.

Dear friends and colleagues,
My husband of almost 50 years, Daniel Gray Quillen died quietly and peacefully on Saturday morning around 7 AM, April 30, 2011 at the age of 70. He is finally at rest and no longer suffering. In the last week of his life he was wonderfully cared for by the people of Haven Hospice. My son David, daughter-in-law Amy, daughter Cindy and I were constantly at his side. Dan died from the final stages of Alzheimer’s and the associated complications. We were able to follow his wishes of comfort and not making his suffering last any longer than nature had planned.
Alzheimer’s is truly a terrible disease. It was very hard to watch what it did to Dan over the past 5+ years. It stole the things he loved and took him from me too early. It first took his ability to do mathematics, then ability to play music, read, rational thinking and finally recognition of those he loved (except me, thank goodness).
I have no plans for an organized service. Dan’s body has been donated to medical science, following his clear and long standing wishes. If the mathematics community would like to organize a memorial service or a memorial colloquium we would be very pleased.
Please do not send flowers. I don’t know what I would do with them. If people feel that they would like to do something, I would very much support any assistance to your local hospice or to or Alzheimer’s research.
The work that hospice does in amazing and finding an answer to this awful disease is unbelievably important.
Thank you for all your support and friendship recently and for almost 50 years.
Jean Quillen
jeanquillen1@yahoo.co.uk

The International Journal of Algebra and Computation has expanded in scope, and now includes computational commutative algebra and algebraic geometry.

From the AMS:

The American Mathematical Society, with support from a private gift, is now accepting applications for travel grants in partial support of attendance by graduate students at one of the fall, 2011 AMS Sectional Meetings. Applications will be accepted through April 15, 2011. Applications for any one of these four sectional meetings will be accepted and considered as a group. Notifications of awards/declines: early June, 2011. This program accepts applications from current full time doctoral students.
Application deadline is April 15, 2011. See the web page for details and instructions.

Adam Van Tuyl has posted some photos from the recent Combinatorial Algebra meets Algebraic Combinatorics conference that was held in Thunder Bay in January.
People can access the photos and information about the session at: http://flash.lakeheadu.ca/~avantuyl/research/CombAlgMeetsAlgComb_Lakehead_2011.html.

Adam Van Tuyl has posted some photos from the recent special session at the Canadian Math Society Winter Meeting in Vancouver.
People can access the photos and information about the session at: http://flash.lakeheadu.ca/~avantuyl/research/CMS_2010_Vancouver.html. Go see!

Anton Leykin writes:

Dear Macaulay2 user,
You are invited to apply to participate in a Macaulay2 workshop that will take place at Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) from Monday, July 25, 2011 through Friday, July 29, 2011. The default arrival/departure is Sunday/Friday (night). Activities will start Monday morning (possibly Sunday night).
The application form is accessible from the IMA website. The application deadline is March 31, 2011.
Continue reading “Macaulay2 at IMA, July 2011”

Amelia Taylor writes:

Dear Macaulay 2 user,
With funding from the Deutsche Forschungs Gemeinschaft (DFG — the German Research Council), we are organizing a Macaulay 2 workshop, from Monday, February 28, 2011 through Friday, March 4, 2011 with Sunday, February 27 and Saturday, March 5 serving as the travel days. The workshop will be at the Courant Center for Higher Order Structures in Göttingen (www.crcg.de). Activities will start first thing Monday morning (possibly Sunday night).
The purpose of the workshop is to bring Macaulay 2 developers together with those who would like to share or develop their skills at writing packages for Macaulay 2 and those interested in developing the corresponding mathematical algorithms. Continue reading “Macaulay2 Workshop in Germany, Feb 2011”

We’re saddened to note the passing of two giants of twentieth-century algebra, Goro Azumaya and Gerhard Hochschild.
Azumaya, who introduced the idea of an Azumaya algebra and was a professor emeritus at Indiana University, died July 8 at the age of 90. He received his PhD in 1949 from Nagoya University under the direction of Shokichi Iyanaga.
Hochschild, who introduced Hochschild cohomology, died July 8 at the age of 95. He received his PhD in 1941 from Princeton University under the direction of Claude Chevalley. Among the institutions where he worked are the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of California, Berkeley, where he spent most of his career and from where he retired. In 1979 Hochschild was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. The next year he received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for “his significant work in homological algebra and its applications.”
On a lighter note, did you catch the theorem on an animated TV show last month? (Thanks to Ian Aberbach for this.)

Scott Chapman has been appointed Editor-Elect of the American Mathematical Monthly effective January 1, 2011. He will serve a five year term as Editor from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2016. His appointment was approved by the MAA Board of Governors at MathFest in Pittsburgh in August. Congratulations to Scott!

Lorenzo Robbiano points out that Springer is discounting some prices on some books. For example, Kreuzer–Robbiano’s “Computational Commutative Algebra 1 and 2” are discounted on sale at €39.54 instead of the usual €64.15/€58.50. The discounts don’t appear to be available in the US, but Lorenzo tells us they are valid in some areas until July 31 2010.