Category: News Postings

We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our friend and colleague Anders Frankild. He was undergoing treatment for leukemia, which had recently returned after a remission. Our thoughts are with his family.

We highly recommend this video of Jean-Pierre Serre, speaking on “How to Write Mathematics Badly”. The talk is apparently from the Harvard “Basic Notions” seminar in 2003, and is both educational and hilarious.
We recently learned of the existence of a wiki for academic positions in mathematics. It contains information about the status of faculty searches at various institutions posted anonymously by folks on the job market.
Speaking of jobs, we’ve learned from John Greenlees (email: J.Greenlees@sheffield.ac.uk) of a postdoctoral position to work on the project `Orientability and complete intersections for ring spectra’. The position starts Summer 2007 and has not been posted on the EIMS site. More information can be found at John Greenlees’ website or at one of the following job sites: http://www.shef.ac.uk/jobs/ or http://www.jobs.ac.uk/. The closing date is 04 April.

We’ve updated our announcement for the MSRI Workshop on Advances in Algebra and Geometry in April, to point out that the Workshop coincides with David Eisenbud’s sixtieth birthday and his imminent retirement as Director of MSRI. Thus one goal of the Workshop will be to honor David’s many and varied lifetime contributions to the vitality of the mathematical sciences.
Also, Holger Brenner has alerted us to a petition for guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results that has (as of 04 Feb) almost 17,000 signatures.

We received the following from David Eisenbud:

Dear Algebraists,
We are thrilled to announce the launch of a new journal: Algebra & Number Theory
The purpose of the journal is to provide an alternative to the current range of commercial specialty journals in these fields – an alternative of higher quality and much lower cost.
The policies of Algebra & Number Theory are set by the editorial board, a group of working mathematicians, rather than by a profit-oriented company, so they will remain friendly to mathematicians’ interests. In particular, they will promote broad dissemination, easy electronic access, and permissive use of content to the greatest extent compatible with survival of the journal. The journal is published by Mathematical Sciences Publishers, using the efficient model that has proved successful for its other journals, such as Geometry & Topology.
Please encourage your library to subscribe! And submit your high-quality original articles to us!
For more information, see http://jant.org.
Best,
—
David Eisenbud, chair of the editorial board
Bjorn Poonen, managing editor
(on behalf of the editorial board)

Tim Römer has posted some photos from the recent Conference honoring Winfried Bruns. Thanks, Tim!
Also, we’ve posted some photos from the CMS Winter meeting in Toronto. Go see!

Sean Sather-Wagstaff has posted some photos from the recent Kent Regional Algebra Weekend. Thanks, Sean!
We learned from Ragnar-Olaf Buchweitz of the existence of a new journal of interest to commutative algebraists: Algebra & Number Theory. According to the web page, “Algebra & Number Theory publishes high-quality original research articles in algebra and number theory, interpreted broadly, for example including algebraic and arithmetic geometry. […] The policies of Algebra & Number Theory are set by the editorial board – a group of working mathematicians – rather than by a profit-oriented company, so they will remain friendly to mathematicians’ interests.” We at commalg.org applaud this effort!

Razvan Veliche has posted some photos from the AMS meeting in Salt Lake City.
Also, Apostolos Thoma has posted some photos from the Workshop on Combinatorics and Commutative Algebra.

Graham Leuschke has posted some photos from the opening ceremony of the ICM, including photos of the awarding of the Fields Medals to Andrei Okounkov, Grisha Perelman (declined), Terence Tao, and Wendelin Werner.

Some colleagues have asked us to post an announcement for the following position:
Professorship in Algebra at the University of Copenhagen. Full information may be found at http://www.math.ku.dk/ma/stillinger.html. Note in particular that the deadline for applications is 1 August 2006 at 12:00 AM.
In other news, we’ve posted some photos from the recent conference on Commutative Algebra and its interactions with Algebraic Geometry at the CIRM in Luminy, France. Go see!

David Eisenbud has written to us of the passing of Irving Kaplansky on 24 June 2006.

Dear Colleagues,
I’m writing to share sad news I received yesterday from Kaplansky’s family: Kap died in his sleep Saturday night.
Kap was enormously influential in many fields of mathematics, through his papers, his books, and perhaps most of all through his students — 55 PhD students and 581 mathematical descendants listed on the genealogy project already put him in the top tier of influence, and the many many students who, like myself, listened raptly to his courses are a still larger group. I remember well his highly entertaining and beautifully polished lectures from my student days in Chicago — whatever he taught, I signed up for the course, it was such a pleasure to listen to him. From being on the first winning team of the Putnam competition to being President of the AMS and National Academy member, his career was truly remarkable — you can find more information starting from the AMS website, http://www.ams.org/ams/48-kaplansky.html.
As second Director of MSRI, Kap served the Institute directly from 1985 through 1992. He greatly developed the reputation and influence of MSRI, building on the start provided by the founders, Chern, Moore and Singer. My own first experiences at MSRI were under Kaplansky’s directorship. As with everything he did, he paid attention to every detail of the operation — he boasted to me once that he personally read and signed every single letter of invitation that the Institute sent out during his eight years in office. He and his wife, Chellie, were also very present and available to the members — literally thousands will remember Kap’s musical performances at the Christmas parties. Among the many marks Kap left on MSRI was the start of fundraising activity. For example Kap formed the “International Board of Friends of MSRI”, and the connections made through this group are still of the utmost importance to us.
Kap’s first paper appeared in 1939. After stepping down as MSRI director, at 80, Kap went back to full-time research mathematics, and returned to number theory, one of his first loves. Some of his most recent work, on integral quadratic forms, was published in 2003, when he was 86.
Mathematically, Kap was my brother: he, the first student of MacLane, I, nearly the last. But he was much more an uncle to me who had been down most of the avenues that I later began to explore. He was always generous in advice, counsel, and in giving credit. I saw him nearly every day in my student days at Chicago, and again, nearly every day, over the first 8 years I was here as Director. Interacting with Kap was always a pleasure, crisp, clear, and somehow uplifting. It is one that I shall deeply miss.
Sadly,
David