Adventures of a mathematician

A Mathematician Reads

New York University mathematical physicist Alan Sokal published in the postmodern humanities journal Social Text a parody entitled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” [1]. His point in doing so was to test whether the field of “cultural studies of science” was seriously lacking in “intellectual standards”. His article is nonsense from start to...

The mathematician as a formalist

Jonathan Borwein: Experimental Mathematician

Jonathan M. Borwein unexpectedly died on 2 August 2016, in London, Ontario, Canada, where he had been visiting on leave from home institution, the University of Newcastle, Australia. Since his death, the present author and Nelson H. F. Beebe of the University of Utah have been collecting Borwein’s many published papers, books, reports and talks, as well as a number of articles written by others...

A Mathematician Looks at Answer Set Programming

We shall discuss a variety of results on Answer Set Programming based on the work of author with Marek, Nerode, Blair and Cenzer that have arisen by looking at Answer Set Programming from a mathematical perspective. This includes work with Nerode and Marek (Marek, Nerode, & Remmel 1990; 1992c; 1992b; 1992a; 1994; 1997; 1999) Nonmonotonic Proof Systems which allows one to gives a common generali...

What is It That Makes a Mathematician?

Our meeting Where will the next generation of UK mathematicians come from? will concentrate on the education policy issues arising from our desire to nurture future mathematical talent. However, a brief look at the programme of the meeting shows that no discussion of what mathematical abilities and talent are is scheduled. I hope that we have a shared understanding sufficient for a meaningful c...