AWM and Math for America (MfA) are pleased to announce the winners of the 2026 AWM-MfA Student Essay Contest! Learn more about the winners and read their essays here: 🔗 awm-math.org/awards/stude.... Please join us in congratulating this year's winners! #AWM #MathforAmerica #STEM

It's the work of Melbourne Uni student Stuart McArthur, & it launched on Australia Day, 1979. It's now sold over 350,000 copies - presumably mainly to the 12% of the world population that lives south of the equator. Take THAT, Northern oppressors. 26/

#CallForNominations for the ISC Fellowship 2026 intake are now open. Deadline 22 May 2026. https://council.science/news/isc-fellowship-call-2026/ The ISC Fellowship recognises eminent scientists and thought leaders who have made outstanding contributions to science as a global public good.

#Consultancy: The ISC is looking for a Media Consultant who will support the development of a media toolkit based on the Hazard Information Profiles (HIPs). Deadline 20 April. https://council.science/news/consultancy-hazards/

Hey #MathSky did anyone here have, or work on/work with, an NSF-VIGRE grant back in the day? I'm interested in resources re: "vertical integration" models (postdocs/grad students/undergrads), how they've stood the test of time (or not) & how it might look in today's contexts.

Numeracy ≠ mathematics.

Here is the NYT obituary: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/s...

I would bet against Q day by 2030, but I wouldn't bet against it at 10:1 odds. ~10% risk is unacceptably high here, so I'm very in favor of transitioning to quantum-safe cryptography by 2029: blog.google/innovation-a... Yes this means I 90% expect to be made fun of in 2030. Oh well.

Strawberry Fields forever

Square with four vortexes.

Tiling of 320 equilateral shapes. #Tiling #MathArt #MathsArt #Geometry

Our #InternationalDayOfMathematics colloquia by Tadashi Tokieda are now online: 1/2: 'Irrational ways of manufacturing numbers' (13 March) youtu.be/eebNVwdu51M 2/2: 'Pure mathematics as applied physics' (16 March) youtu.be/mGZJH-n4a6E Thanks to Tadashi for the visit 🌏🦘🧮 #MathSky #SMRISeminar

What about the people who can’t tell “Arrivals” from “Departures” at an airport? Because they arrive to depart and depart because they’ve arrived …

Im pretty sure these guesses won’t follow a bell curve …

Gerd Faltings wins the #Abel Prize www.nature.com/articles/d41...

There’s a sense in which people don’t properly acknowledge others for shaping their realizations in mathematics. It used to severely irritate me when I was starting out in my career. Now I just harrumph 🐘and add them to a long list of small glimpses into human behaviour…

A great loss for us all. His most famous result, the resolution of singularities in characteristic zero, was a class example of how a "simple" strategy carried out with accuracy and determination proved a wonderful and very strong result. He was a king, generous person and will be much missed.

Heisuke Hironaka, Field Medalist in 1970, has passed away. He was an algebraic geometer, who was very influential (He mentored undergraduate student June Huh, who won a Fields medal in 2022.) 👇🏼 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisuke...

The Government released the final report of the Strategic Examination of R&D yesterday. It's called "Ambitious Australia"🙃 Haven't read much, yet, but it says we should fund the ARC more. Like every single previous review. Can we got on with it & do that, now? www.industry.gov.au/publications...

We just received (very nice) referees’ reports for a paper we submitted to a journal on 18 December 2024 🙂‍↕️ #mathsky #mathematicallife

It's official! The Theory of #Quantum Computation, Communication and Cryptography conference (TQC) 2028 will be held in Sydney, 🇦🇺 Australia, in August'28! tqc-conference.org/2026/2027/ #TQC2028 (TQC 2027 will take place in Grenoble, France)

arxiv.org/abs/2603.07154 /English translation of Sophie Kowalevski's "On the problem of the rotation of a rigid body about a fixed point"/ Sophie Kowalevski (translation by Graham Hesketh)

I gave a talk* in the NSW Science & Research Breakfast series organized by the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer’s Office. I can’t watch myself but ICYMI 👇🏼 m.youtube.com/watch?v=1hxJ... (*Can you spot the point where I misnamed the author whose famous book contains an attack on a Playfair code?)

If you were thinking of joining us for Tadashi Tokieda's 'A magic show', we have added two extra sessions 🗓️ due to demand on Sat 14 + Sun 15 March: events.humanitix.com/a-magic-show... 🎩🐰 This will be part of 'Maths at the Museum', curated by SMRI for International Day of Mathematics #MathSky #Syd

Translate this to mathematics research and you will see how reliance on bibliometric data 📈 by organizations fails to recognize inventive, creative, bold mathematical breakthroughs, which are crucial for progress…

why do nerds suddenly appear every time I post here

Nice and quite nuanced. And I love this quote!

If you’re gripped by the wave of stories giving one side or the other of “AI vs Mathematics”, you may be interested in the tidal flow described in this recent interview with @teorth.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

The ARC have said (on LinkedIn) they will release outcomes for Discovery Projects Expressions of Interest (2027) tomorrow👇

Congratulations to Prof Mary Myerscough, winner of the 2026 ANZIAM Medal! www.anziam.org.au/The+2026+ANZ...

Our International Day of Mathematics events includes 2 special magic shows by Tadashi Tokieda at the Chau Chak Wing Museum on Sat 14 & Sun 15 March 12:30 pm 'A magic show' will be for both curious children 🧒 & seasoned scientists alike! 🪄👩‍🔬 🎩 🧮 events.humanitix.com/a-magic-show... #MathSky

“Hope is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed” Václav Havel (1986) 👇🏼

I am reading Susan Groundwater-Smith’s collection of essays on education, which was for me the origin of the phrase “Hope, Wisdom, and Courage” that I now use to describe our Centre of Excellence www.qmul.ac.uk/clpn/news-vi...

"Math is not true because we tell kids it is true; math is true because they can find that truth for themselves. We can find these truths together."

And, of course, if you're in charge of some security thing that's vulnerable to quantum attacks, you should be *assuming progress*. The strategy "we'll start our 3 year plan when it looks 4 years away" is just guaranteeing an "oh shit" moment when progress subtracts 2 years.

In our journey to construct an arithmetic theory of the Painlevé equations, we consider the fourth Painlevé equation and the difference second Painlevé equation over fields with finite characteristic p>0. There are some surprising discoveries reported here 👇🏼

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." —Charles Babbage

'A world from a sheet of paper' - SMRI's #InternationalDayOfMathematics public lecture by Tadashi Tokieda will be on Fri 13 March Starting from a sheet of paper, explore magic tricks and geometry in this lecture filled with table-top demonstrations 🔗 events.humanitix.com/internationa... #MathSky🧮

Celebrating International Day of Women & Girls in Science by sharing this NSW State Library collection of interviews with some incredible Australian women in science, incl Nalini Joshi, Belinda Medlyn, the late Emma Johnston, Veena Sahajwalla & Lesley Hughes. collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/search?subje...

It’s mind-blowing to read that “ACIP’s chair, told a podcast, “I don’t like established science,” adding that ‘science is what I observe.’” The Economist (Asia Pacific) 07 Feb 2026 [The ACIP is Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices]

Nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it.

Free archive copy: archive.md/2026.02.09-0...

The inimitable @drmel.bsky.social takes a star turn in the Sydney Morning Herald www.smh.com.au/business/wor...

Matinée d'hommage à Michèle Audin : mathématicienne, historienne, écrivaine et femme engagée Le 14/03 à l'Institut Henri Poincaré, organisée par Femmes et Mathématiques et la SMF Inscription gratuite obligatoire smf.emath.fr/node/3690018 Venez nombreuses et nombreux, et partagez !

The applications to the Sydney Mathematical Research Institute (SMRI @sydmathinst.bsky.social) International Visitor Program close ⏰ 11:59pm (Sydney time) Feb 17. Apply to visit, and do research at SMRI and institutions across Australia! mathematical-research-institute.sydney.edu.au/internationa...

The extraordinary internationally renowned mathematical physicist Francesco Calogero passed away on 31 January 2026. He accepted the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Pugwash and was influential in many directions, e.g., the Calogero-Moser systems 👉🏼 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...

I just discovered happy numbers and I’m happy because they’re not what I expected… Hint: take the square of each digit and add. Do the same to the result and keep going. If the end is 1, then it’s happy 😃

“Professor John Cannon AO FAA has been recognised as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to tertiary education, to mathematical computation, to cryptography, and to the development of algebraic software systems.” #mathsky 🎊 👉🏼 www.science.org.au/news-and-eve...

WOOHOO! Our sandwiches paper has been published! 🥳 ...in celebration, I'm going to claim that tonight's lasagna was a sandwich. 🥪

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...