Prof Ingrid Daubechies

Woman Mathematician

to Provide Leadership

Reports Vinod Varshney

First time a woman mathematician Prof. Ingrid Daubechies would provide leadership to international cooperation in mathematics. She has been elected the president of the International Mathematical Union, an august body of mathematicians established nine decades ago.

The IMU elected Tuesday its Executive Committee also for the term 2011–14. It has one Indian also Vasudevan Srinivas.

Prof. Daubechies’ election is doubly encouraging as the first International Conference of Women Mathematicians was inaugurated in Hyderabad on 17 August. Besides, she is the first woman Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, New Jersey. She is also the first woman to receive the National Academy of Sciences Medal in Mathematics (2000).

Prof. Daubechies is a mathematician and a physicist and works in the Department of Mathematics and in the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. Born in Belgium in 1954, she is now settled in the US (1987 onwards) after her marriage.


In her election speech, Prof. Daubechies expressed happiness that pure and applied mathematicians were interacting more with each other. “I am very interested in how emerging countries develop mathematics…There is enormous potential in young people...In a sense, mathematics is easier for an emerging country to develop than physics or chemistry because you do not need to have a big layout in materials and labs and so on and lot more money. In mathematics, once you build a nucleus who can work together, then the sky is the limit!”


Next Congress would be in Korea


The next International Congress of Mathematicians will be hosted by Korea. The decision was taken by voting at the 16th General Assembly meeting held in Bangalore. Hyungju Park, a member of the Korean delegation in his presentation at the General Assembly told, ‘In IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad), Korea is now steadily ranking third or fourth... mathematics is becoming a very popular subject in Korea. When kids enter college, they take a college entrance exam and they choose their majors. The second most popular area in major universities right now is mathematics. This is something we didn’t expect before. So definitely math is becoming a very popular subject and we think that our ICM efforts also contributed to that. We are telling young students that math is a fascinating subject and there are things that are happening.’


“The relation between the math community and industry is also becoming very strong. Many young students are getting interested in mathematics especially due to TV coverage. Seventy percent of IMO medalists in Korea are choosing math as their college majors – most of them will go on to get Ph Ds in mathematics.”

The Great Maths Show By Women

Great Maths


Show by


Women





By Vinod Varshney

First Time in August this year top women mathematicians from all over the world would assemble in Hyderabad. The occasion is a two day International Conference of Women Mathematicians just before the most prestigious International Congress of Mathematicians.


Only recently women have started asserting their place in the field of mathematics which has been reflecting in girls achieving notable success in the International Math Olympiad. During last twenty five years many girls have almost reached up to the top, remained behind just by a whisker.


Hyderabad women conference would not only raise the self esteem of women mathematicians, but also bring forth some issues which keep women laggards in this field. It is said no women could get Fields Medal, considered as good as Nobel Prize, because it is given to mathematicians who are under forty years.


Since women also have to have children and look after them before 40, this award becomes non-existent for them.

Need to Encourage Girls in Maths

A great need is being felt that girls be encouraged to opt mathematics as a career and research option. If this happens then within a decade perhaps some woman may be able to win Fields medal. Recently the Abel prize has been introduced which is also considered as important as Nobel Prize. Only nine mathematicians have won this so far, but no woman.


No Indian man also has won any of these two most prestigious awards given for great research in mathematics. This raises a question if ever the situation would change in India. Everybody knows that quality research does not take place in India. Indian Universities even do not care to update their curriculum for decades. Bright students remain far behind because of this callousness of Indian academicians. So much so teachers in Delhi University are unashamedly fighting against even introduction of semester system.

We Had Ramanujan Once

Average Indians feel proud only in telling that we had once Ramanujan whose problems no mathematician in the world has been able to solve so far rather than solve them themselves if this is a great mathematical issue.


It is great that International Conference of Women Mathematicians is taking place in India. It is the  European Women in Mathematics that had taken initiative in this matter. Prof (Ms) Shobha Madan of IIT-Kanpur is championing the cause in India.


In India we had last year seen a national conference of women mathematicians at the Jawahar Lal Nehru University, Delhi. But it had mixed attendance, almost equal number of men mathematicians. The Hyderabad conference is expected to be truly a women show on a grand scale.

Bhama Srinivasan

The job of activating women mathematicians around the globe started much earlier by forming the Association for Women in Mathematics in 1971. An American Indian Bhama Srinivasan also had been its President during 1981-83. Bhama Srinivasan, born and grew up in Chennai, got the spark from her grandfather who was an amateur practitioner of mathematics.

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