A day in the life of a mathematician
It’s Mathematics Awareness Day at my home institution of Ryerson University. In honour of the occasion, I wrote a special blog cataloguing a day in the life of a mathematician (me!). Also, I am taking over @RyersonSci on Twitter for the day. There will be special tweets and surprises there. Watch out for #FOSBoss! *** “Woke up,…
Interview with a mathematician: Izabella Laba
Izabella Laba is a leading mathematician working at the University of British Columbia. Her research spans several fields such as harmonic analysis, geometric measure theory, mathematical physics, and the relatively new (but fast-breaking) area of additive combinatorics. She is highly awarded, having won the prestigious Coxeter-James and Krieger-Nelson Prizes of the Canadian Mathematical Society. In 2012, she became a fellow…
Algebraic topology and the brain
What is the connectome? Networks are everywhere: the roads in cities, links in the web, and the neural pathways in our brains. The science of networks is a trending topic interfacing with many disciplines. Mathematics, as you would expect, plays a major role in understanding the properties, structure, and evolution of networks. The connectome is a network consisting of…
Mathematics in the movies
Popcorn and math As the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival is about to open in Toronto, I think back on the amazing movies I’ve seen there with mathematical themes. Mathematicians aren’t exactly a movie producer’s dream protagonist. We don’t blow things up, have superpowers, or save the world from invading aliens (or do we?). Movies rarely,…