Our students need to become better expositors

Which is the bigger challenge: solving the problem or explaining your results? Convincing your collaborator that you are right or convincing the granting agency that your research needs funding? Understanding the fine points of a derivation or understanding the societal context of your work? Krešimir Josić on the importance of communication skills.

2013 - the year of The Mathematics of Planet Earth

The International Mathematical Union has declared 2013 to be the year of The Mathematics of Planet Earth. Here is a short guide to some of the activities and resources.

The future of Snowbird

The bi-annual meeting of our AG will take place in Snowbird, Utah, this spring. The 2015 meeting will also be held there, but the location of the 2017 meeting has not been decided yet. One option is, obviously, for the AG to renew its contract with Snowbird and continue a tradition that started twenty years ago. However, over the years the character, scope and size of the meeting have changed, and some feel that the expiry of the current contract is a good opportunity to look for alternatives. Since this is a matter that affects most of our members, the DSWeb Magazine team will use the Editorial to open a discussion, in the hope that some concensus can be found in May.

Are publishers really ready for mathematics e-books?

Editorial by Charles morgan

Chaos

Tradition wants it that we spend several years abroad as postdocs after finishing our PhD, and look for more permanent positions across the globe. This often leads to issues collectively known as "n-body problems" - where n>1. Your Portal-Editor-in-Chief ups the ante by becoming father while moving down under.

Publication price and value

The Elsevier boycott call has opened another round in the debate on subscription costs, publisher profit and open access. Let's have a peek.
The spring editorial by former Editor-in-Chief Jens Rademacher.

Death Knell for the Lecture (and Conference)?

Will scientific meetings and lectures move online in the near future? Editorial by Krešimir Josić

Math in the Twenty First Century

Carson Chow comments on the past and potential future impact of technology on mathematics.

Massively Multiplayer Mathematics

Although theorems are frequently named after a single person, most progress in mathematics is the result of a group effort. Recently several difficult problems in mathematics have been attacked by a collective of mathematicians that have communicated through online blogs. The immediacy of this mode of communication allowed the first proposed problem to be cracked in a surprisingly short time. Will this remain an isolated approach, or can we expect that hard mathematical problems will be regularly crowdsourced in the future?