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General trends in mathematical activity

The size of the community and of


mathematical research activity increases
exponentially.
New areas of application, and their
increasing significance.
New tools: computers and information
technology.
New forms of mathematical activity.
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Size of the community and of research


Mathematical literature doubles in every 25
years
Impossible to keep up with new results:
need of more efficient cooperation and
better dissemination of new ideas.
Larger and larger part of mathematical activity
must be devoted to communication (conferences
with expository talks only, survey volumes,
internet encyclopedias, multiple authors of
research papers...)
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Size of the community and of research


Challenges in education:
Difficult to identify ``core'' mathematics
Two extreme solutions:
- New results, theories, methods belong to
Masters/PhD programs
- Leave out those areas that are not in
the center of math research today

Size of the community and of research


Challenges in education:
Difficult to identify ``core'' mathematics
Focus on mathematical competencies
(problem solving, abstraction, generalization
and specialization, logical reasoning,
mathematical formalism)

Size of the community and of research


Challenges in education:
Exposition style mathematics in education:
teach students to explain mathematics to
outsiders and to each other, to summarize
results and methods,...
teach some mathematical material
exposition style?
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Applications: new areas


Traditional areas of application: physics,
astronomy and engineering.
Use: analysis, differential equations.

Applications: new areas


Biology: genetic code
population dynamics
protein folding
Physics: elementary particles, quarks, etc.
(Feynman graphs)
statistical mechanics
(graph theory, discrete probability)
Economics: indivisibilities
(integer programming, game theory)
Computing: algorithms, complexity, databases,
networks, VLSI, ...

Applications: new areas


Traditional areas of application: physics,
astronomy and engineering.
Use: analysis, differential equations.
New areas: computer science, economics,
biology, chemistry, ...
Use: most areas (discrete mathematics,
number theory, probability, algebra,...)
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Applications: new areas


Very large graphs:
-Internet

@Stephen Coast

Applications: new areas


Very large graphs:
-Internet
-Social networks
-Ecological systems
-chip design
-Statistical physics
-Brain

What properties to study?


-Does it have an even
number of nodes?
-How dense is it
(average degree)?
-Is it connected?

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Applications: new areas and significance


Challenges in education:
- Explain new applications
programming, modeling,...
- Train for working with non-mathematicians
interdisciplinary projects, modeling,...

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New tools: computers and IT


Source of interesting and novel
mathematical problems >new applications
New tools for research (experimentation,
collaboration, data bases, word
processing, new publication tools)

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New tools: computers and IT


Challenges in education:
- Students are very good in using some of
these tools. How to utilize this?
nonstandard mathematical activities
- How to make them learn those tools that
they dont know?
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New forms of mathematical activity


Algorithms and programming
Algorithm design is classical activity
(Euclidean Alg, Newton's Method,...)
computers increased visibility and
respectability.

but

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An example: diophantine approximation


and continued fractions
Given , find rational approximation p / q
such that | p / q | / q and q 1/ .

| m n p || q p |
q 1/

a0

a0 ?

1
1
a1

a0

a
0

1
a0
a1
continued fraction expansion
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New forms of mathematical activity


Algorithms and programming
Algorithm design is classical activity
(Euclidean Alg, Newton's Method,...) but
computers increased visibility and
respectability.
Algorithms are penetrating math and
creating new paradigms.
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A mini-history of algorithms 1930s


Mathematical notion of algorithms
recursive functions, -calculus, Turing-machines
Church, Turing, Post
algorithmic and logical undecidability
Church, Gdel
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A mini-history of algorithms 1960s


Computers and the significance of running time
simple and complex problems
sorting
searching
arithmetic

Travelling Salesman
matching
network flows
factoring

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A mini-history of algorithms 70-80s


Complexity theory
Time, space, information complexity
Nondeterminism, good characteriztion,
completeness
Polynomial hierarchy
Classification of many real-life problems
into P vs. NP-complete
Randomization, parallelism
P=NP?

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A mini-history of algorithms

90s

Increasing sophistication:
upper and lower bounds on complexity

algorithms

negative results

factoring
volume computation
semidefinite optimization

topology
algebraic geometry
coding theory
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A mini-history of algorithms

90s

Approximation algorithms
positive and negative results
Probabilistic algorithms
Markov chains, high concentration,
phase transitions
Pseudorandom number generators
from art to science: theory and constructions
Cryptography
state of the art number theory
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New forms of mathematical activity


Challenges in education:
Balance of algorithms and theorems
Algorithms and their implementation
develop collections of examples, problems...

No standard way to describe algorithms:


informal? pseudocode? program?
develop a smooth and unified style
for describing and analyzing algorithms
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New forms of mathematical activity


Problems and conjectures
Paul Erds: the art of raising conjectures
Best teaching style of mathematics
emphasizes discovery, good teachers
challenge students to formulate
conjectures.
Challenges in education:

Preserve this!!

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New forms of mathematical activity


Mathematical experiments
Computers turn mathematics into an
experimental subject.
Can be used in the teaching of analysis,
number theory, optimization, ...
Challenges in education:
Lot of room for good collection of
problems
and demo programs

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New forms of mathematical activity


Modeling
First step in successful application of
mathematics.
Challenges in education:
Combine teaching of mathematical
modeling with training in team work and
professional interaction.
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New forms of mathematical activity


Exposition and popularization
Growing very fast in the research community.
Notoriously difficult to talk about math to nonmathematicians.
Challenges in education:
Teach students at all levels to give
presentations, to write about mathematics.
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