• Elon Lindenstrauss (for analytic work with applications to number theory)
• Ngô Bảo Châu (for analytic work with applications to number theory)
• Stanislav Smirnov (for theoretical work in statistical physics)
• Cedric Villani (for theoretical work in statistical physics).

"One may suppose God would use a much more efficient algorithm, one that always uses the shortest sequence of moves; this is known as God's Algorithm. The number of moves this algorithm would take in the worst case is called God's Number. At long last, God's Number has been shown to be 20."

"Giving teens 30 extra minutes to start their school day leads to more alertness in class, better moods, less tardiness, and even healthier breakfasts..."

Bedtimes and wake-up times for Americans in their 20s by IQ:

Very Dull (IQ < 75)
Weekday: 11:41 P.M.-7:20 A.M.
Weekend: 12:35 A.M.-10:09 A.M.

Normal (90 < IQ < 110)
Weekday: 12:10 A.M.-7:32 A.M.
Weekend: 1:13 A.M.-10:14 A.M.

Very Bright (IQ > 125)
Weekday: 12:29 A.M.-7:52 A.M.
Weekend: 1:44 A.M.-11:07 A.M.

"The story began many years ago in 1974 when I wanted to find a formula for the n'th digit of Pi... since the computation of Pi looks more complicated than the number e... I studied a way to compute that number instead.

...During my stay at Bordeaux University in 1992-1993 I perfected that program I had that could interface Pari-Gp and Maple. That little Unix script had an enormous advantage of flexibility because I could set up a series of real numbers to test among 1 unknown. At that time I was beginning to find new results, the programs were able to find identities.

That program was the one that found the formula for Pi in hexadecimal (or binary)...

This is where I made the biggest mistake in my life : To accept the collaboration of Peter Borwein and David H. Bailey as co-founders of that algorithm and formula when they have found nothing at all. David Bailey was not even close to me when I found the formula. He was added to the group 2 months after the discovery.

I was naively thinking that I could negotiate a job as professor at Simon Fraser University, which failed. I am very poor at negotiations. I remember that day when the Globe & Mail newspaper article went out in October 1995. I was at Jon Borwein's house and he had a copy of the newspaper in hand. This is where I asked him to become a professor at SFU. He simply replied right away < don't even think about it >. I thought, this is the best chance I will ever have to become a professor there, since it failed, I decided that I had to leave that place.

I was very frustrated at that time, in late 1995 after the discovery. I realized that many small details where terribly wrong. They were getting a lot of credit for the discovery and I had the impression of not getting anything in return. My strategy failed... Later that year, I was invited to a ceremony in Vancouver for the CUFA (faculty of the year Award). This is a prize with plaque and mention that those 2 brothers received for the discovery of the formula. They simply mentioned my name at the ceremony and I received nothing at all...

Then in 1996, I realized that if I get up at night to hate them it is a very bad sign, it means that I have to leave that place (Simon Fraser university). I was convinced I had no future at all with those 2 guys around. I was making serious plans to leave.

...About David H. Bailey. He came after the discovery of the formula and my small basic program , I had also a Fortran version. This is where Peter Borwein suggested to add him as a collaborator to the discovery since he contributed to it (as he said), this is my second big mistake. Of course he accepted to co-write the article, who wouldn't ?! David H. Bailey (and Ferguson) are the authors of the PSLQ program. That program is the version of the Pari-Gp program. I used it a little it is true, but what made the discovery was Pari-Gp and Maple interface program I had. So actually, that person has nothing to do with the discovery of that algorithm and very little to do with the finding of the formula. The mistake was mine. Saying that Bailey found the formula is like saying that the formula was found by the Maple and Basic program.

I tried very hard to correct the situation avoiding the subject of the actual discovery of the algorithm and the formula, I made an article in 1996 for the base 10. I thought naively again that this would re-establish the situation, it did not. I almost accepted to do a film at one point in 1999 when a certain guy from England that wanted to make a movie on Pi and the discovery of the formula. he asked me if I would accept to talk about my with the Borweins. I did not wanted to go in that direction, I should had. There was that book of Jean-Paul Delahaye (le fascinant nombre pi) that mentioned the Plouffe algorithm and formula because I told him part of the story. In some way I was afraid of revealing that enormous story.

Why was I so naive? I had a previous collaboration with Neil Sloane and the Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences and the web site, this was really a big success and Neil is the person I respect the most in mathematics so this is why I thought (wrongly ) that my collaboration with the Borweins had to go well, a big mistake.

Why do I write this? To tell the truth and also the arrogance of those people makes me sick.

Will I gain something from this? I don't care, I have nothing to loose.

Simon Plouffe Montréal, le 22 juin 2003."

               

1. In 1993 she split $11 million.
2. In 2006 she won $2 million.
3. In 2008 she won $3 million.
4. Last month, she won $10 million.

"After examining the rate of chatter from almost 3 million movie tweets, the researchers constructed a linear regression model for predicting box-office revenues of movies in advance of their release. These results outperformed the Hollywood Stock Exchange, a market in which people can buy and sell virtual shares in actors, directors and individual movies and produces unusually accurate predictions of film popularity."

"We consider it remarkable that this equation, derived by Boltzmann and Maxwell in 1867 and 1872, grants a fundamental example where a range of geometric fractional derivatives occur in a physical model of the natural world... The mathematical techniques needed to study such phenomena were only developed in the modern era."

"UBC researchers have proffered a new mathematical model that seeks to unravel a key evolutionary riddle--namely what factors underlie the generation of biological diversity both within and between species."

"I'm not going to decide whether to accept the prize until it is offered."

1. Recommendation first by a Special Advisory Committee (Simon Donaldson, David Gabai, Mikhail Gromov, Terence Tao, and Andrew Wiles)
2. Recommendation by the CMI Scientific Advisory Board (James Carlson, Simon Donaldson, Gregory Margulis, Richard Melrose, Yum-Tong Siu, and Andrew Wiles)
3. Final decision by the Board of Directors (Landon T. Clay, Lavinia D. Clay, and Thomas M. Clay).

"A cleaning lady and her son have been charged over the death of a reclusive, multi-millionaire maths genius whose burned body was found dumped in a field."

• Math genius Walter Sartory (aged 73, retired nuclear scientist) uses math to get rich on stock market, $14 million to be precise.
• Sartory was a true savant who had schizophrenia and even had set up a sophisticated computer system to listen for alien life.
• Cleaning lady Willa Blanc and her son allegedly put his body in a large bin and driven it to Indiana, where it was burned. They pleaded not guilty.

"I quit (kinda)!
I've been thinking about it for awhile, and I have a lot of good reasons: I'm not having fun anymore, three times a week is too often, I'm not really all that funny, I'm not that much of an artist, my mom is starting to understand too much math because of this comic, etc. So for now, I've decided to let my Brown Sharpie pursue other hobbies while I focus on things that make me happy (like grad school! and beer! and fuzzy kitties!)."

• They factored the number RSA-768 on December 12th, 2009
• The number RSA-768 is from the RSA Challenge list as a representative 768-bit RSA modulus
• This result sets a new record for factoring general integers
• Math: Method used is the number field sieve factoring method
• Quoted from the paper: "We spent half a year on 80 processors on polynomial selection. This was about 3% of the main task, the sieving, which was done on many hundreds of machines and took almost two years."

"...Mr. Gardner was 42 and had never taken a math course beyond high school. He had struggled with calculus and considered himself poor at solving basic mathematical puzzles, let alone creating them. But when the publisher of Scientific American asked him if there might be enough material for a monthly column on "recreational mathematics," a term that sounded even more oxymoronic in 1956 than it does today, Mr. Gardner took a gamble."

• Education in math and science is important.
• Obama committed to moving country from middle to top of the pack in math education.

" You are more likely to be friends with someone who has more friends than with someone who has fewer friends. There are 12 people who have a friend who has 12 friends, but there is only one person who has a friend who has only one friend. And, of course, there is no one who has a friend who doesn't have any friend. Yet there is actually only one person who has 12 friends. So "12" gets counted only once when you compute the average number of friends that people have, but it gets counted 12 times when you compute the average number of friends that their friends have. Hence the seeming paradox that your friends have more friends than you do."

- Richard Heene makes experimental helium balloon
- Heene & wife freakout since their "son" may be in the basket
- crapload of publicity, balloon comes down, son not in there
- son was actually in the Heene house attic all along
- 4chan delivers pizza to balloon boy
- news now reporting the stunt was a hoax
- charges filed against Heene

"There is plenty of humor, a few movies, some great activities and explorations, and lots of math in Math Teachers at Play 17. Hope you enjoy reading these as much as I did. Thanks to everyone who submitted posts or answered my requests to include their work."

"In tests in Canada, women who were told that men and women do math equally well did much better than those who were told there is a genetic difference in math ability.

And women who heard there were differences caused by environment -- such as math teachers giving more attention to boys -- outperformed those who were simply reminded they were females.

The women who did better in the tests got nearly twice as many right answers as those in the other groups, explained Steven J. Heine, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver."

Each two-page spread has an excellent story about a mathematical principle, discovery, puzzle, or person. You can find more information about the book at amazon.com.

• 18+ years old
• College Grad
• Majored in Mathematics (of course :D)

• who live in one of the countries: Canada or United States