Sir Roger Penrose - looking into black holes
On October 6th 2020 Sir Roger Penrose was awarded, jointly with Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez, the nobel prize for physics for their groundbreaking discoveries concerning black holes.
Academic life in a lockdown
I did a thought experiment: what would have happened to the world if corona would have hit us in 1990? Or in 2000? So my thoughts went back to my early years as an academic, wondering how we would have coped with the pandemic a few decades ago.
Shreds of memories of Paul Erdős
In mathematics it is almost impossible not to encounter the name of Paul Erdős. Much of his work centered around discrete mathematics, cracking many previously unsolved problems in the field.
Interview with Birgit Sollie
Birgit Sollie is a PhD student at the VU Amsterdam, where she does research in stochastic processes and mathematical biology. In this interview she talks about her research and her motivation for doing mathematics.
José van Dijck: "I draw inspiration from the relationship between technology, user and ideas"
José van Dijck is a University Professor of Media and Digital Society at Utrecht University. Her research concerns media, social media and media technologies.
"A digital app can help reconstruct the virus transmission contact network"
Directly or indirectly networks played a crucial role during the Corona health crisis. During this online event the speakers shed light on the relevance of networks in combating the epidemic, each one from a different point of view, namely from that of the exact sciences, medicine, communication and social sciences respectively.
Verbonden tegen Covid-19 – Structure, contacts, emotions and behavior
On Tuesday 31st of May the KNAW organized the webinar "Verbonden tegen Covid-19 - Hoe netwerken pandemieën verspreiden en bestrijden" (Connected against Covid-19 - How networks spread and combat pandemics).
Aida B. Paalman-de Miranda: a topologist from Amsterdam
On 11 May 2020 Prof. dr. Aida Beatrijs Paalman-de Miranda passed away. Aida (Ietje) Paalman-de Miranda was professor of mathematics between 1966 and 1997 at the Korteweg-de Vries Institute, the mathematics research institute of the University of Amsterdam.
Mathematics connects us
What is nice about math, is that its language is truly universal. Talking about many things with people from other backgrounds, one could easily end up being lost in translation.
Interview with Onno Boxma
On Friday 11 October I went to Eindhoven for an interview with Onno Boxma. Onno became a professor of stochastic operations research in 1998 in Eindhoven Technical University, since 2018 he is an emeritus professor.