Filmed in Canada, Iran, and the United States, Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani examines the life and mathematical work of Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian immigrant to the United States who became a superstar in her field. In 2014, she was both the first woman and the first Iranian to be honored by mathematics’ highest prize, the Fields Medal. Read more

Trailer of the documentary here.

Also, Zala Films is supporting the May 12th initiative of the International Mathematical Union’s Committee for Women in Mathematics, which each year brings together virtual or local events celebrating women in mathematics. Due to COVID-19 (and by special agreement with Zala Films), individuals and organizations between April 1 and May 19, 2020, may access our film about the life and work of the Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani. (You can make a request for screening authorization here.) 

For more information, visit www.msri.org/general_events/24654.

We are sharing information from http://zalafilms.com/secrets/

This ten part history of mathematics from Newton to the present day, reveals the personalities behind the calculations: the passions and rivalries of mathematicians struggling to get their ideas heard. Professor Marcus du Sautoy shows how these masters of abstraction find a role in the real world and proves that mathematics is the driving force behind modern science.

1 Newton and Leibniz

The story of two late 17th century mathematicians who worked on the same problem at the same time – the calculus – in which the great hero of British science, Newton, reveals himself to be a little less gentlemanly than his German rival, Leibniz. The calculus is one of the greatest achievements of mankind: an astronaut and an investment analyst pay homage to its enormous power. Listen here

2 Leonard Euler

how the mathematics that Leonard Euler invented two hundred years ago has transformed the internet. Euler’s solution to an 18th-century conundrum paved the way for the search engines most of us use every day. Listen here

3 Joseph Fourier

The mathematics of Joseph Fourier. It’s thanks to his mathematical insight that you can hear Marcus on the radio and that Brian Eno can create sounds that have never been heard before. Listen here

4 Evariste Galois

How the mathematics of the French revolutionary, Evariste Galois, has proved invaluable to particle physicists working today.The mathematics that Galois began, over two hundred years ago, now absolutely describes the fundamental particles that make up our universe. Listen here

5 Carl Friedrich Gauss

It was the German scientist and mathematician, Carl Friedrich Gauss, who said mathematics was the Queen of Science. One of his many mathematical breakthroughs, the Gaussian or normal distribution, is the lifeblood of statistics. It underpins modern medicine and is a valuable tool in the fight against prejudice. Listen here

6 The Mathematicians Who Helped Einstein

The pioneering nineteenth century mathematicians who helped Albert Einstien with his maths: Jonas Bolyai, Nicolas Lobachevski and Bernhard Riemann. Without the mathematics to describe curved space and multiple dimensions, the theory of relativity doesn’t really work. Listen here

7 Georg Cantor

Georg Cantor, the mathematician who showed us how to carry on counting when the numbers run out. An insight into the nature of infinity that Roger Penrose believes helps to explain why the human brain will always be cleverer than artificial intelligence. Listen here

8 Henri Poincare

Henri Poincare, the man who proved there are certain problems that mathematics will never be able to answer: a mathematical insight that gave rise to chaos theory. Listen here

9 Hardy and Ramanujan

G.H.Hardy, the mathematician who insisted he had never done anything useful. And yet his work on the “diabolical malice” inherent in prime numbers inspired the millions of codes that now help to keep the internet safe. Listen here

10 Nicolas Bourbaki

The mathematician that never was, Nicolas Bourbaki. A group of French mathematicians, working between the two world wars and writing under the pseudonym Nicolas Bourbaki transformed their discipline and paved the way for several mathematical breakthroughs in the 21st century. Listen here

Info from BBC Radio 4

Terence Tao will be teaching online course Classical Fourier Analysis at UCLA from 30 March 2020. 

Course covers the following topics:

• Restriction theory and Strichartz estimates
• Decoupling estimates and applications
• Paraproducts; time frequency analysis; Carleson’s theorem

Lecture notes will be made available on this blog.

• The first class is Monday Mar 30.
• Note for non-UCLA participants: You will be permitted to attend the Zoom lectures and to post comments on the blog (one can use this post in particular for general questions about the course). 

 Course info

• Instructor: Terence Tao, tao@math.ucla.edu, MS 6183.  [Note for non-UCLA participants: I will not have time to respond to individual email inquiries about the class. Please use the blog for such inquiries.]
• Lecture: MWF 2-2:50pm PT, held online at https://ucla.zoom.us/j/9264073849 .  Note that access to this Zoom meeting room may be restricted outside of lecture times, or used for other purposes (such as other online seminars).  Also, while I am not recording these classes, bear in mind that I cannot prevent the video for these rooms from theoretically being recorded by third parties.
• Discussion section: N/A
• Office Hours: Th 2-3:50pm PT, online at https://ucla.zoom.us/j/9264073849 In addition, students are encouraged to use the blog comment feature, as well as start discussions in the forum. [Note for non-UCLA participants: you have read-only access to the forum.  You can use the comment thread at this blog post as a substitute.]
• Textbook: There is no required text; instead, lecture notes will made available on Terence Tao’s blog.  We will not directly follow these texts, but Demeter’s “Fourier Restriction, Decoupling, and Applications” and Muscalu-Schlag’s “Classical and multilinear harmonic analysis” (both volumes) will be relevant resources.  For Carleson’s theorem, this paper of Demeter (focusing on the slightly simpler Walsh model analogue of the theorem) can also be consulted.
• Prerequisites: A high grade in Math 247A (such as the previous quarter’s class) is required for enrollment. [Note for non-UCLA participants: Math 247A covered the following topics: A_p weights and maximal and vector maximal functions, Calderon-Zygmund convolution kernels, Sobolev embedding, the Mikhlin multiplier theorem, the square function, Littlewood-Paley theory, fractional product and chain rules, and oscillatory integrals.]

More information:
https://ccle.ucla.edu/mod/page/view.php?id=2840550
https://terrytao.wordpress.com

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2020 to Hillel Furstenberg from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Gregory Margulis from Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA “for pioneering the use of methods from probability and dynamics in group theory, number theory and combinatorics.”

A biography of Hillel Furstenberg is here

A biography of Gregory Margulis is here

You can watch the interview with Hillel Furstenberg and Gregory Margulis

Info from The Abel Prize Laureates 2020 International Page