NEWSLETTERO F T H E E U R O P E A N M A T H E M A T I C A L S O C I E T Y

FeatureThere is a Projective Dynamics

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Research CentresICERM Providence

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ICMI ColumnFerdinando Arzarello

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InterviewAbel Laureate Pierre Deligne

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EuropeanMathematicalSociety

September 2013Issue 89ISSN 1027-488X

Contents

EMS Newsletter September 2013 1

Editorial Team EuropeanMathematicalSocietyNewsletter No. 89, September 2013

EMS Agenda .......................................................................................................................................................... 2Editorial – B. Teissier .................................................................................................................................. 3New Editor of the EMS Newsletter appointed .............................................................. 5EMS Executive Committee Meeting in Belfast – S. Huggett ..................... 6EMS Committee for European Solidarity ............................................................................. 7EMS Committee for Developing Countries ....................................................................... 8Lagrange, a Truly European Mathematician – S. Benzoni........................... 11“Comics&Science” in Italy – R. Natalini ............................................................................. 12ICM 2014 in Seoul ........................................................................................................................................... 13Interview with Abel Laureate Pierre Deligne –

M. Raussen & C. Skau ........................................................................................................................ 15Explaining Deligne To A Broad Audience – R. Vakil ................................................. 24Matching in Marriage and Markets – J. Ma & T. Sjöström ........................ 31There is a Projective Dynamic – A. Albouy ..................................................................... 37ICERM – J. Pipher ........................................................................................................................................... 45ICMI Column – M. Bartolini Bussi ............................................................................................... 48Solid Findings on Students’ Attitude to Mathematics – Education

Committee of the EMS ....................................................................................................................... 51ERME column – M. Mariotti & B. Ubuz ................................................................................ 53Zentralblatt Column: Mathematical Formula Search –

M. Kohlhase, H. Mihaljevic-Brandt, W. Sperber & O. Teschke ....... 56Book Reviews ....................................................................................................................................................... 58Problem Corner – Th. M. Rassias .............................................................................................. 64

The views expressed in this Newsletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the EMS or the Editorial Team.

ISSN 1027-488X© 2013 European Mathematical SocietyPublished by the EMS Publishing HouseETH-Zentrum SEW A27CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland.homepage: www.ems-ph.org

For advertisements and reprint permission requests contact: newsletter@ems-ph.org

Editor-in-Chief

Lucia Di Vizio (2012–2016)Université de Versailles- St QuentinLaboratoire de Mathématiques45 avenue des États-Unis78035 Versailles cedex, France e-mail: divizio@math.cnrs.fr

Copy Editor

Chris Nunn 119 St Michaels Road, Aldershot, GU12 4JW, UKe-mail: nunn2quick@qmail.com

Editors

Mariolina Bartolini Bussi(Math. Education) DESU – Universitá di Modena e Reggio EmiliaVia Allegri, 9I-42121 Reggio Emilia, Italybartolini@unimore.it

Jorge Buescu (Societies)Dep. Matemática, Faculdade de Ciências, Edifício C6, Piso 2 Campo Grande1749-006 Lisboa, Portugale-mail: jbuescu@ptmat.fc.ul.pt

Eva-Maria Feichtner (Research Centres)Department of MathematicsUniversity of Bremen28359 Bremen, Germany e-mail: emf@math.uni-bremen.de

Eva Miranda Departament de Matemàtica Aplicada I, EPSEB, Edifici PUniversitat Politècnica de CatalunyaAv. del Dr Maranon 44–5008028 Barcelona, Spaine-mail: eva.miranda@upc.edu

M d lina P curar (Personal Column)Department of Statistics, Forecast and MathematicsBabes, -Bolyai UniversityT. Mihaili St. 58–60400591 Cluj-Napoca, Romaniae-mail: madalina.pacurar@econ.ubbcluj.ro

Ulf Persson Matematiska VetenskaperChalmers tekniska högskolaS-412 96 Göteborg, Swedene-mail: ulfp@math.chalmers.se

Zdzis!aw Pogoda(Book Reviews)Institute of MathematicsrJagiellonian Universityul. prof. Stanis!awa "ojasiewicza30-348 Kraków, Polande-mail: zdzislaw.pogoda@uj.edu.pl

Themistocles M. Rassias(Problem Corner)Department of MathematicsNational Technical University of Athens, Zografou CampusGR-15780 Athens, Greecee-mail: trassias@math.ntua.gr

Volker R. RemmertIZWT, Wuppertal UniversityD-42119 Wuppertal, Germanye-mail: remmert@uni-wuppertal.de

Dierk SchleicherSchool of Engineering and ScienceP.O. Box 750 561University Bremen28725 Bremen, Germanydierk@jacobs-university.de

Erhard Scholz (History of Mathematics)University WuppertalDepartment C, Mathematics, and Interdisciplinary Center for Science and Technology Studies (IZWT), 42907 Wuppertal, Germanye-mail: scholz@math.uni-wuppertal.de

Olaf Teschke (Zentralblatt Column)FIZ Karlsruhe Franklinstraße 11 10587 Berlin, Germanye-mail: teschke@zentralblatt-math.org

Jaap TopUniversity of Groningen Department of Mathematics P.O. Box 4079700 AK Groningen, The Netherlandse-mail: j.top@rug.nl

Mathematics Education

48 EMS Newsletter September 2013

ICMI Column

I know that short notes about these projects have already been published in the EMS Newsletter.The Klein and CANP projects have been developed in coopera-tion with the Interna-tional Mathematical Union and bear wit-ness to the extremely good relationships be-tween the ICMI and the IMU. In this effort of cooperation with

developing countries, the Commission for Developing Countries of the IMU (http://www.mathunion.org/cdc/about-cdc/members-cdc/) and the International Centre for Pure and Applied Mathematics - Centre Internation-al de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées (CIMPA) are involved.

This network of activities is very demanding and exploits the competences of both the members of the present executive committee of the ICMI and of what we could call “friends of the ICMI”, that is, members of the ICMI community at large, who, after working on ICMI activities in the past, are still willing to cooperate with the ICMI. In this very rich community I hope to be able to give a personal contribution on the process of “cul-ture melange”, in order to foster the exchanges between different cultures and traditions. I am especially worried about and interested in Africa. When I submitted my CV to be elected for President I quoted a sentence by Pub-lius Terentius Afer (Terence, the Latin playwright born in Africa in the second century BC): Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto (I am a human being, so nothing human is strange to me). Two of the series of CANP pro-grammes actually involve Africa (Mali and Sub-Saharan Africa; Tanzania and Eastern Africa).

The role played by non-European scholars in the sci-ence renaissance after the Middle Ages is well-known to historians, although not so popular with the general pub-lic. An Italian merchant Leonardo Fibonacci is credited with introducing to the West and to Europe the impor-tant arithmetic and algebraic knowledge developed by Arab scholars. This cultural melange is well presented, in

Interview with the ICMI president Ferdinando Arzarello (University of Turin, Italy)Mariolina Bartolini Bussi (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy)

From 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2016 the ICMI has a new President: Ferdinando Arzarello, a full professor at the Department of Mathematics, University of Turin, Italy. Here follows an interview with the new president, to capture his feelings and plans for the ICMI.

First, I want to thank you for this interview. I know that you have many obligations but I believe that it is im-portant to share your ideas with our readership. What are, in your opinion, the main projects of the ICMI? What are your aims for your term?The main projects of the ICMI are well illustrated on the ICMI website (http://www.mathunion.org/ICMI/) and in ICMI News, to which people can freely subscribe (http://www.mathunion.org/icmi/publications/icmi-news/). I just wish to mention:

- The quadrennial International Conference on Mathe-matics Education (ICME), held in 2012 in Seoul (South Korea) and announced for 2016 in Hamburg.

- The permanent programme of ICMI Studies, started in the 1980s in order to have a better understanding and resolution of the challenges that face multidiscipli-nary and culturally diverse research and development in mathematics education. So far, 19 studies have been completed; three studies are in progress and one study, the first ICMI study on primary schools, has just been launched.

- The Klein project, inspired by Felix Klein’s famous book Elementary Mathematics from an Advanced Standpoint, which was published one century ago. It is intended as a stimulus for mathematics teachers, to help them make connections between the mathematics they teach, or can be asked to teach, and the field of mathematics, while taking into account the evolution of this field over the last century.

- The Capacity & Networking Project (CANP), The Mathematical Sciences and Education in the Devel-oping World. It is a major development focus of the international bodies of mathematicians and math-ematics educators (the International Mathematical Union, IMU, and the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, ICMI) in conjunction with UNESCO and the International Congress of Industri-al and Applied Mathematics, ICIAM. The project is a response to Current Challenges in Basic Mathematics Education (UNESCO, 2011).

Mathematics Education

EMS Newsletter September 2013 49

ICMI Column

a snappy way, by the exhibition “Un ponte sul Mediterra-neo” (A bridge over the Mediterranean: http://php.math.unifi.it/archimede/archimede/fibonacci/mostra.php). This influence changed European and World history.

We have already published (Issue 87) the names of the members of the executive committee (2013–16). They are: Ferdinando Arzarello (President), Cheryl E. Praeger and Angel Ruiz (Vice-Presidents), Abraham Arcavi (Secretary-General), the Members-at-Large Catherine P. Vistro-Yu, Jean-Luc Dorier, Roger Howe, Yuriko Yamamoto Baldin and Zahra Gooya, the ex-of-ficio Members Bill Barton (past President of the ICMI), Ingrid Daubechies (President of the IMU) and Martin Grötschel (Secretary of the IMU). Would you like to say some words about them? Have you already met them?I was already acquainted with Abraham Arcavi (the cur-rent Secretary General of the ICMI), Bill Barton (the past President), Yuriko Baldin, Jean Luc Dorier and Za-hra Goya. Apart from their scientific output, I became acquainted with them on different occasions. For exam-ple, I worked with Jean Luc at the first CERME (Osna-brueck, Germany, 1998) in the working group about the teaching of algebra; I was in Auckland many times and I became a friend of Bill and his wife Pip; I met Abra-ham at a Winter school on mathematics education that I organised in Italy some years ago; I am working with Yuriko in the Klein project; I worked with Zahra when we were both in the IPC of the PME some years ago. Now I am starting to know all the members of the EC through the frequent emails we are exchanging because of our charge and during our meetings. The working cli-mate is excellent and we have started to share some re-sponsibilities. But another person is also very important for our work in the EC: Lena Koch, who manages all the administrative business of the ICMI from her bureau in Berlin, where the offices of the IMU and the ICMI have been for some years.

You already had substantial international experience as an outstanding researcher in mathematics education, as a member of the International Committee of the In-ternational Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (IGPME) and as the President of the Euro-pean Society for Research in Mathematics Education (ERME). I have no doubt that your past experience will be very useful for your presidency. What similarities and differences do you envisage between these contexts?

IGPME and ERME are both associate organisations of the ICMI: IGPME since 1976 and ERME since 2010. The IGPME is a research community, whose main focus is not so much on the mathematical content of the teach-ing and learning of mathematics but rather on the condi-tions (psychological, sociological and so on) where this process occurs. ERME is mainly a European association, although in ERME conferences we have the pleasure of hosting outstanding researchers from all over the world. In principle, ERME has the potential to be at-tractive for many non-European researchers because of the spirit of fostering communication, cooperation and collaboration. The ICMI has no individual members as the members are countries. In this way, the ICMI has created, in a sense, a much larger community, larger in time (ICMI was founded in 1908), in space (more than 90 countries), in focus (the mathematics to be taught, in connection with the IMU traditions), and in the issues to be discussed, which address not only research questions in the traditional sense but also political questions, re-lated to the diffusion of mathematics education all over the world. This project surely draws on the expertise of Western researchers but has to take into account the cul-ture, the traditions, the needs and constraints of many different countries, most of which are not even able to guarantee primary school education to every child. This requires a change of perspective, as far as the relevance of projects is concerned.

As you say, the ICMI now has more than 90 member states from all the continents. The executive committee includes members from several continents. What might be, in your opinion, the contribution of European cul-ture and tradition in mathematics education to the fu-ture development of ICMI activities?A good question. Education, including mathematics edu-cation, has been in Europe and in other Western coun-tries the main tool for developing critical thinking and the very sense of democracy. Europe can contribute with a reflection on the ways this process was developed, not offering ready-made solutions but rather fostering the development of similar processes in other parts of the world, taking into account local cultures and traditions. I like to mention here a quotation from Yuri Lotman, the founder of the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School at Tartu University in Estonia: “culture is not a repository of ready-made ideas and texts, but a living mechanism of collective conscience.”