Women & Mathematics

From the Hindu:

The Minister said India would hold an International Congress of Mathematicians later this year in Hyderabad. It had won the bid to host the prestigious event against stiff competition from Canada and Australia at the ICM held in 2006.

The congress has been held continuously every four years since 1897 except for breaks during the two world wars. The coming session, from August 19 to 27, will be the first ever to be held in India. It will only be the third time Asia is hosting the Congress — after a congress in Kyoto in 1990 and another in Beijing in 2002.

Women in STEM

From AOL News:

It's been five years since Lawrence Summers, then the president of Harvard, infamously suggested that "innate" differences were to blame for the lack of women in top science positions at universities. But a new report suggests that social factors play a significant role in holding women back in science, technology, engineering and math -- the so-called STEM fields.

The report, which looked at recent research on the topic, found that entrenched stereotypes and biases affect performance in both genders. The authors highlight two main stereotypes: that girls are not as good as boys at math, and that scientific careers are "masculine" in nature. Researchers found that the stereotypes can lower girls' performance in these subjects and also reduce their interest in pursuing science or engineering jobs.

Hypatia: The Movie

From The Examiner:

Filmmaker Alejandro Amenabar is bringing the story of Hypatia and the fall of the Library of Alexandria to the big screen in his new epic film, Agora, starring Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, the last currator of The Library of Alexandria, The film has already premiered at cannes.

Hypatia was a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and librarian working in a man’s world in 4th century A.D. Egypt before a Christian mob violently murdered her, destroyed the Library of Alexandria, and brought about the beginning of the Dark Ages. Hypatia struggled to preserve scientific knowledge amid militant Christianity. But she failed. The Christians declared her a witch, stripped her, dragged her body through the streets, and burned her at the stake before destroying the library, leading the Western world into a thousand years of darkness. She died a hero and a martyr for science and reason.

See also: TIFF Review

Women in Maths & Science

From CBC News:

The National Research Council reported this spring that women who earn Ph.D.s in science (though there are still far fewer of them than men) are as likely to land teaching positions, promotions and tenure at major research universities as their male counterparts. During the same week the National Academy of Sciences reported that girls in the U.S. have now reached parity with boys in mathematical achievement.

Currently universities are reporting marked increases in female enrollment in science, engineering and math degree programs. Engineering is now one of the most popular majors at the all-female Smith College in Massachusetts. (The college graduated 20 students from its new engineering program in 2004; today it enrolls 135.) Half of all MIT undergraduates are now women. And last year at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh women made up 30 per cent of undergraduate students in mathematics and science, up from 17 per cent in 1986.

The Ivy League's Brown University, which has had a highly regarded mentoring program called WISE (women in science and engineering) for more than a decade, has noticed a striking increase in female applicants who are interested in pursuing science degrees. The number of women intending to enroll in physical sciences increased about 40 per cent from the class of 2010 to the class of 2013. Brown is also is making a concerted effort to hire more women for its science faculty, according to Katherine Bergeron, a dean of the college. Toward that end the university recently received a $3 million US grant from the National Science Foundation to support women in the sciences.

Maths to define fashion

From Physorg:
"Researchers in Japan have turned to mathematics to build a computerized 3D model of the female trunk that could help lingerie and other clothes designers make more sensuous, comfortable, and better fitting product ranges.

The team took a close look at the bodies of 560 Japanese women aged from 19 to 63 years using laser metrology to map "control points" at specific sites on the women's trunks. They could then fit this data to a generic 3D trunk model in the computer and fit the control points to it to build up a database of body shapes.

They then applied statistical analysis to the data employing principal component analysis and cluster analysis to classify trunk characteristics into five different types. Each depends on slimness or otherwise, breast size and angle, neck type, and shoulder slope. They obtained five classes of body shape which they say represent the majority of trunk shape among Japanese women.

The researchers say their analysis will be helpful in producing clothes that fit better for size and shape, and in improving practical functional clothes used for body adjustment and posture improvement."


Finally - maths being used for good not evil!