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| Towering minds: The American Institute of Math recently broke ground on its future digs, inspired by a Spanish castle. Courtesy of the American Institute of Math |
Chasing down zeros at math camp
In sessions at the American Institute of Math, geniuses munch food and crunch numbers, contemplating labyrinthine ideas.
By Frank Kosa | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the July 30, 2007 edition
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Palo Alto, Calif. - If mathematical brilliance generated electricity, there'd be enough wattage at this restaurant table – a stone's throw from the American Institute of Math – for a good 20 million homes. The conversation flows from food to hobbies to, well, zeta functions. But as dinner winds down, George Csordas, a distinguished-looking functions theorist from the University of Hawaii, confesses that he never balances his checkbook. "I hate doing the math," he says with a broad smile.
Victor Vinnikov from Israel's Ben Gurion University jumps in. "It's restaurant checks for me," he says. "I can calculate the 15 percent tip, but adding it back in – forget it."
These two are part of a group of 28 mathematicians who recently assembled to ponder some of the hardest math problems since Archimedes – part of a week-long workshop at the institute.
Now, before you flip away to read about something simpler – like, say, the Middle East – let me state up front just how much math you'll need to understand for this article: zero.
Let me also state the most important number for this group of mathematicians: zero.
Finally, let me offer a definition of math from David Farmer, director of programming at the institute: Math is about making connections, especially where they aren't obvious.
In other words, it's a dating service for numeric ideas. These 28 experts play Cupid.
To do its work, the institute chooses some of the brightest mathematicians from disparate specialties and provides a focused but informal schedule packed with good food and libations, along with lots of small workspaces where no one is ever far from a whiteboard. Week-long workshops focus on problems from braid groups to keeping graduate students devoted to math.
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