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Maths NOT Your Strongpoint? Then Stay Away from NMMU Next Week

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Leading mathematicians from around the globe are jetting in to Port Elizabeth for the prestigious joint congress of the South African Mathematical Society (SAMS) and American Mathematical Society (AMS), to be held at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University from November 29 to December 3.

About 350 delegates from countries all over the world – a third of them masters and doctoral students – will attend this second SAMS-AMS congress, which will include a visit by South Africa’s deputy minister of Science and Technology Derek Hanekom. The first SAMS-AMS congress was held in Pretoria in 1997.

“The aim of the conference is to promote excellence in mathematical research,” said Local Organising Committee chairman Prof Geoff Booth, who is also director of the School of Computing Sciences, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics at NMMU. “Mathematics plays a crucial role in most of today’s cutting edge technologies, from computers to weather forecasting to economics and much more.”

Co-funded by the London Mathematical Society, the congress includes eight keynote talks by distinguished mathematicians and maths educators – three each from SAMS and AMS, one from the Association of Mathematics Educators of South Africa (AMESA), and one from the Southern African Mathematical Association (SAMSA), which includes all Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries.

The three AMS speakers are Professor of Applied Mathematics Mark Ablowitz from the University of Colorado at Boulder, South African-born Prof Peter Sarnak of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and Hungarian mathematician Prof Zoltan Furedi from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The SAMS speakers are Prof James Raftery from the University of Kwazulu-Natal, the University of Cape Town’s Prof Daya Reddy, who holds a South African Research Chair in Computational Mechanics, and UCT cosmologist Dr Amanda Weltman. The AMESA speaker is Lindi Tshabalala, from the Gauteng Department of Education, while University of Swaziland associate professor Mikhail Petrov is the SAMSA speaker.

There will also be 14 special sessions, covering a wide range of topics in pure and applied mathematics and maths education, a large number of talks in general sessions and several poster presentations.

“We are looking forward to welcoming mathematicians from around the globe to a truly world-class event,” said Booth.

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Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.