[Todos CMAT] tres noticias matemáticas

[Dr. Roberto Markarian]

Preparing IMO 2017 and ICM 2018
In a ceremony I attended some time ago, Fields Medalist Artur Avila  
took the occasion to remind all journalists present of what he  
referred to (only half-jokingly, I suspect) as the “event of the  
decade in Rio de Janeiro: the International Congress of Mathematicians  
ICM 2018”. With a few “rehearsals”, such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup  
finals and the 2016 Olympic Games, now behind us, and the Paralympic  
Games soon to be over as well, Brazil is indeed becoming increasingly  
aware of its role as the host of the first ICM in the southern  
hemisphere. And the fact that the country´s recent troubles seem to be  
subsiding adds a note of optimism about it.
There are also local reasons for mathematics to make the headlines,  
though less pleasant: official data showing that progress in basic  
education is stalled, at best, have reignited the discussion on how to  
change the situation of mathematical teaching in our schools. The  
Biennium of Mathematics 2017-2018 is the latest response from the  
academic community.

A tribute to the coming realization of ICM 2018 (www.icm2018.org), and  
the International Mathematical Olympiad IMO 2017 (www.imo2017.org.br),  
both in Rio de Janeiro, the Biennium of Mathematics is a broad  
initiative sponsored by Brazil´s federal parliament, which aims to  
bring mathematics closer to the whole society, children and their  
families, pupils and their teachers, through a series of activities to  
be put in place across the country during the next two years. The  
official launching will be at the first Brazilian Math Festival,  
scheduled for 27-30 April, 2017.
In the meantime, the Organizing Committees of ICM 2018 and IMO 2017  
are also working hard on the practical preparations for the two  
events, with the support of IMPA and the Brazilian Mathematical  
Society. Venues for both meetings, as well as for the IMU General  
Assembly 2018, have been booked and accommodation options for the  
General Assembly delegates have also been informed in the latest ICM  
Newsletter. Moreover, we started pre-registering voluntaries.
In the next months we will setting a timeline for several other  
important steps to come, including submission of abstracts, requests  
for financial support (from mathematicians in developing countries)  
and registration to attend the Congress and the General Assembly. Keep  
also in mind that by mid-December we will have the second deadline for  
submissions of satellite meetings proposals.
Marcelo Viana
Chair of the ICM 2018 OC

CEIC: Notes and Comments
Improved math rendering in Wikipedia using MathML
As of May 31, 2016, Wikipedia is using a new approach for rendering  
mathematical formulae. Bitmap images representing formulae were  
replaced with a combination of MathML (the web standard for  
mathematics on the web) and a fallback mechanism, which was introduced  
for browsers that do not support this web standard.
This approach makes formulae, machine readable and accessible to users  
with limited vision; and they look crisper on high resolution displays  
and in print. Moreover, it is now possible to copy and paste formulae  
into Microsoft Word or Wolfram Mathematica.
This approach was developed by MathML Association director, Moritz  
Schubotz. Find out more at
http://mathml-association.org/announcement/2016/05/31/wikipedia.html  
or read our paper at http://cicm-conference.org/2016/ceur-ws/W48.pdf .

Tribute to Jean-Christophe Yoccoz
Jean-Christophe Yoccoz died on September 3rd, 2016. With the passing  
away of Jean-Christophe Yoccoz, the Collège de France has lost one of  
its most brilliant members, a truly dazzling mathematician, who  
quickly emerged as the world leader in the theory of dynamical systems  
initiated in the late 19th century by Henri Poincaré. The theory deals  
with the long-term qualitative behavior of dynamical systems. It  
involves, for instance, understanding whether the solar system is  
stable. Can a planet suddenly be ejected from the system? Two types of  
radically different behaviors come into play. Either the movement can  
exhibit stable and "predictable" features or else it can exhibit  
chaotic features. The work carried out by Prof. Yoccoz provided  
greater insight into the boundary between these two behaviors.
As a former student of the École Normale Supérieure where he ranked  
first for the admissions exam in 1975, at the age of 18, and gold  
medal winner at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1974,  
Jean-Christophe Yoccoz completed his thesis under Michael Herman in  
1985 and was awarded the Fields Medal in 1994. In the same year, he  
became a member of the French Academy of Sciences and the Academy of  
Sciences in Brazil. In 1996, he took up the position of professor at  
the Collège de France for the Chair in Differential Equations and  
Dynamical Systems.
He obtained a number of decisive results for the most challenging  
problems related to dynamical systems, and his demonstrations combined  
extraordinary analytical prowess, superb geometric vision and utter  
mastery of the combinatorics illustrated by what is now referred to as  
"Yoccoz puzzles".