Mathematics

MIT scientists have found that the “motions of undulating animals and the states of quantum objects can be described using strikingly similar equations,” writes Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. The similarity “allowed the team to use mathematical tools previously developed by quantum physicists to analyze the animals,” notes Padavic-Callaghan. “For instance, the team quantified how differently a snake-like robot and a C. elegans move and created a diagram that placed them on a spectrum of other undulating creatures.”

Prof. Gilbert Strang received a standing ovation after delivering his last lecture after over 60 years of teaching at MIT, reports Saleen Martin for USA Today. “Teaching has been a wonderful life,” wrote Strang in the comments section of his last lecture on YouTube. “I am so grateful to everyone who likes linear algebra and sees its importance. So many universities (and even high schools) now appreciate how beautiful it is and how valuable it is. That movement will continue because it is right.”

Boston.com reporter Eli Curwin spotlights how after 63 years of teaching and over 10 million views of his online lectures, MIT Prof. Gilbert Strang received a standing ovation after delivering his last lecture. Prof. Michel X. Goemans, head of the Department of Mathematics, notes that Strang “has had a tremendous impact on the teaching of mathematics to tens of thousands of students at MIT through his lectures, to countless of students at other academic institutions through his textbooks, and to millions of people all over the globe.”

Quanta Magazine reporter Jordana Cepelewicz spotlights graduate students Ashwin Sah and Mehtaab Sawhney for their work proving the existence of special objects called “subspace designs.” Sah and Sawhney have “proved the existence of objects whose existence is not at all obvious,” said Prof. David Conlon of the California Institute of Technology. “They’re producing high-quality research at a rate where I can’t even blink.”

Virginia Norwood ’47, an aerospace pioneer who designed and championed the scanner used to map and study the earth from space, has died at 96, reports Dylan Loeb McClain for The New York Times. Using her invention, the Landsat Satellite program has been able to capture images of the planet that provide “powerful visual evidence of climate change, deforestation and other shifts affecting the planet’s well-being,” writes McClain.

NPR reporter Kaitlyn Radde spotlights the life and work of Virginia Norwood ’47, “a founding figure in satellite land imaging who developed technology to scan the surface of the moon for safe landing sites and map our planet from space.” Norwood was known as the "Mother of Landsat” for her work developing the Multispectral Scanner System that flew on the first Landsat satellite.

Virginia Norwood ’47, “a pioneering aerospace engineer who used design innovations, emerging technologies and seasoned intuition in projects that scanned the lunar surface for safe Apollo landing sites and mapped the Earth from space with digital imagery never before seen,” has died at 96, reports Brian Murphy for The Washington Post. “Over a four-decade career that began with slide rules and moved into the age of computer modeling, Ms. Norwood became known as a resourceful problem solver who often hit upon simple but effective solutions,” Murphy writes.

MIT has ranked first in 11 different academic fields in the latest QS World University Rankings, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes.

Undergraduate student Sasha Horokh speaks with GBH reporters Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel about the ongoing war in Ukraine. “I think it's important that we do not get used to this, and to keep supporting Ukraine,” says Horokh.

A new study by MIT scientists finds that Earth can self-regulate its temperature thanks to a stabilizing feedback mechanism that works over hundreds of thousands of years, reports Troy Farah for Salon. “The finding has big implications for our understanding of the past, but also how global heating is shaping the future of our home world,” writes Farah. “It even helps us better understand the evolution of planetary temperatures that can make the search for alien-inhabited exoplanets more fruitful.”

Prof. Peter Shor has been named one of the winners of the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, reports Nature. “Shor’s most renowned contribution is the development of quantum algorithms for prime number factorization,” writes Nature.

During his senior year of high school, MIT first-year student Daniel Larsen successfully proved a key theorem about Carmichael numbers, entities that mimic prime numbers, writes Jordana Cepelewicz for Quanta Magazine. “His proof is really quite advanced,” says Dartmouth Prof. Carl Pomerance. “It would be a paper that any mathematician would be really proud to have written.”  

Prof. Peter Shor and three other researchers have won the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for their work in the field of quantum information, reports Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. Shor “invented the first quantum computer algorithm that was clearly useful. Shor’s algorithm can find the factors of large numbers exponentially faster than is thought to be possible for any classical algorithm,” the Breakthrough Foundation noted in its citation.

The Breakthrough Prize Foundation has named Prof. Peter Shor one of the four winners for the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for his work in the field of quantum information, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. “The laureates honored today embody the remarkable power of fundamental science,” says Yuri Milner, one of the prize founders. “Both to reveal deep truths about the Universe, and to improve human lives.”

Prof. Peter Shor, an expert in quantum algorithms, has been named one of four recipients for the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, reports Ian Sample for The Guardian.