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Colin McAllister’s blog
 
The Agile Mathematician Chen Jingrun
I am not familiar with hiswork, but I found the storyof Chen Jingrun(1933-1996) fascinating. Hegraduated from XiamenUniversity in 1953 andbecame a researcher atthe Chinese Academy of Sciences. His work led toprogress in analyticnumber theory. HisChinese home pageis atthe Chinese Institute of Mathematics. A short biography "A great mathematician ChenJingrun" is onhttp://city.chinaassistor.com/. His 1966 paper was on ""On the representation of a large even integer as the sum of a prime and the product of at mosttwo primes". The cultural revolutionput a halt to research, so Chen's 1966 Theorem wasnot made public until 1973. His work continues to be relevant to recent research in number theory. Mathematician Jason Dyer reports on "Carnival of Mathematics #43" in the blog"The Number Warrior ". He explains why 47 is a Chen prime and 43 isn't. He alsointroduces Roth’s theorem, linking to a paper "Restriction theory of the Selberg sieve, withapplications" by Ben Green and Terence Tao, which is available as afree PDF fileor  PostScript file fromarXiv.org. There is a telling anecdote about Chen Jingrun at"Extraordinary Chinese Sayings, 1840-1999 - Part 1", from the book Extraordinary Sayings(
非常道
) by Yu Shicun (
余世存
). During the Cultural Revolution, the people criticizing ChenJingrun (
陈
景
润
) said: "Let theGoldbach conjecturego to hell! What is so big deal about1+2? Isn't 1+2 equal to 3? You eat the food grown by peasants, you live in a house built byworkers, you are protected by the People's Liberation Army and your wages are paid bythe nation so that you can study 1+2. What is this? This is fake science!" So Chen jumpedon the table, went through the open window and leapt downwards. But when he jumpedout of the third-floor window, he was nicked by an awning and therefore only sufferedsome scratches on his leg when he landed on the ground. A rebel leader looked at Chenand said: "It is no wonder that you are a famous mathematician. You even know how to
Chen_Jingrun 
Jun 10, 2009 Post a commentABO
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Post a comment Tags: math, mathematics, china, theory, prime, maths, number, conjecture …
select the angle when you jump out of the window!"
Post a comment Tags: mathematics, geometry, topology
Century Old Topology Problem Solved in 2006
In case you missed the solution of the centuryoldPoincaré conjecturein 2006, I'll repost a linkto the New York Times article "Elusive Proof,Elusive Prover: A New Mathematical Mystery".The story of the brilliant Russian mathematicianGrigory Perelman (photograph) who identifiedthe solution in 2003 is as mysterious asPoincaré's problem. Wikipedia describes the"Solution of the Poincaré conjecture", for non-mathematician, explaining the problem withdoughnuts, balls, a cigar and even mozzarellacheese that is stretched to representRicci flow,the method of solution. For further reading, there is a repository of original material here"Notes and commentary on Perelman's Ricci flow papers".
Grigori_Perelman 
A New Game to Help Children LearnMathematics
I reviewed the prototype of a web basedgraphical game that aims to help children learnmathematics. It was developed by Mr VeljkoSekelj, a freelance Internet consultant (LinkedInprofile). He invited me, via the "Math, MathEducation, Math Culture" discussion group onLinkedIn.com, to try out the game and I wasquite impressed. At first I couldn't understand itsintuitive interface, because I am an adult accustomed to pull down menus and tabbedpanes. The game aims to help children associate fractions with percentages. A cartoonSanta Clause introduces a snow scene with a group of identical parcels that contain either a fraction or a percentage. It is operated using the mouse, and the goal is to pair upmatches, for example 1/3 and 33%, which pop out of the boxes. There are no instructions,but the game would be quite intuitive to children, though perhaps not to less inquisitiveadults. It needs to be made more international, with alternative themes, as the snow scenewould not be familiar to children in the tropics. Use of red or green colouring to indicatewrong and right selections might be a problem for someone who is colour blind. I wasdelighted to get all the correct answers, but I was greeted by a cartoon character in tearsof distress, with a sign telling me in German that I was “Zu Langsam!” or “Too Slow!”. Thegame is at the prototype stage, so I hope that the feedback is made more constructive.The game is online athttp://www.lernmathe.com/, where you may try it out for yourself or 
Prototype_Mathematics_Game 
Jun 8, 2009 Post a commentJun 6, 2009 Post a commentExplofamilyTAG
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The Trouble WithPhysics: T... 
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Post a comment Tags: math, mathematics, flash, software, education, maths
with your children. The author would be glad to hear your feedback. He is also seekingfunding for developing the game. His development project "Innovating the way howchildren learn math" and "Contact Me" link, is at Kickstarter.com.Kickstarter.comis a new way for people in the USA to seek funding for ideas and endeavours. Read theKickstarter FAQto find out more about how it works.
Post a comment Tags: business, training, creativity, education, innovation
Let Creativity Flourish at Work and University
I recently responded to a survey by creativitytrainer, Karen Sieczka, who blogs atGROWINGGREAT IDEAS. She created thesurvey oncreativity at workto collect research for anupdate to her bookGrowing Great Ideas:Unleashing Creativity at Work. The survey wasuseful to me, as it gave me a few minutes tothink about creativity from the perspective of auniversity lecturer. I sharemy answers to thesurveyat The Hub. If you intend to do thesurvey, please complete it before reading myanswers.The Hub for Productive Thinkingis anew social network, that I found onNing.com, for exchange of ideas on productive thinkingand other creativity models, tools and techniques.
Growing_Great_Ideas 
Thoughts About Creating A Mathematics SocialNetwork 
Are you thinking about creating a new socialnetwork for discussing mathematics? Thatwould be a responsible undertaking, and youwould need to have sufficient time and energyto make the commitment. If you are too busy,there are existing social networks for mathematics that you can join. I discuss someof the considerations below. Websites likeVox.comandNing.com  enable you to create and manage your own social network. Ease of use is the advantageof Ning as aTechCrunch articledescribes. If you need more control and are willing to writeHTML and do some programming, a more ambitious alternative would be to host your ownwebsite. Another approach would be to use a Content Management System (CMS) toprovide the framework. Creating and maintaining a social network would be a significant project, so findsome friends who share your research or teaching interests. Before you begin, make sure
BoundedArea 
May 21, 2009 Post a commentMay 14, 2009 1 comment
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