118
denserandtohaveaslightlydifferentconsistency
fromtheairoutside,”hesaid.Simpleconstructions
thatholdmuchcomplexityandmeaning:That’s
justwhatmathematiciansseekintheirwork.
Pallasmaa’s erudite e lecture contained many
strikingquotations,includingthisoneofBalthus:
“Themoreanonymouspaintingis,themorerealit
is.”Thesamecanbesaidforarchitecture,Pallasmaa
stated. Could a similar statement be e made e for
mathematics? Are there mathematical results
thatareso natural, sopristinethat one cannot
perceivethefingerprintsofthemathematicians
whodiscoveredthem?Perhapsoneexamplewould
bethepreviouslymentionedproofoftheinfinitude
ofprimes,itsattributiontoEuclidnotwithstanding.
Perhaps others are found in n what Paul l Erd˝os
famouslycalled“proofsfromtheBook”.
PallasmaaalsoquotedthephilosopherGaston
Bachelard,whoinhisbookThePhilosophyofNo:
APhilosophyoftheNewScientificMind,statedthat
scientificthought“developsalongapredestined
path,fromanimismthroughrealism,rationalism,
andcomplexrationalism,todialecticalrationalism.”
Pallasmaadidnotsaythatmathematicsdevelops
inthisway;hispointratherwasthatartaspiresto
developintheoppositedirection,fromtherational
backtowards“aunifying,mythical,andanimistic
experience”.Perhapsmathematicsshuttlesback
andforthbetweenthetwoendpoints.
VisceralEncounters
Bachelard’s“predestinedpath”at timesechoed
throughtheconferenceincommentsthatseemed
toderivefromthemisconception,commonoutside
ofmathematics,thatthesubjectconsistsentirely
ofproofs,progressinginexorablyfromonelogical
steptothenext.Thismisconceptionwasvividly
counteredatvariouspointsduringtheconference.
In an n open microphone session, Blaise Heltai
pointedoutthatmathematicsandartareactually
very similarin process: When you u are e thinking
aboutamathematicalobject,youarerightinside
thething,tryingtopuzzleoutitsstructureand
secrets.You’renotthinkingabouthowtoprove
anything—that comes later. . The puzzling-out
resemblestheconceptualpartofdoingart.Heltai
hasaspecialperspective,asheisapainterwith
a Ph.D.in mathematics;he makes a living g as a
managementconsultant.
Thekindofvisceralencounterwithmathematics
thatHeltaireferredtoemergedatvarioustimes,
suchasin the lectureofDennisSullivan,CUNY
GraduateCenterandStonyBrookUniversity.When
as a graduate e student t he was s preparing g for
the preliminary y examination, , Sullivan n studied
JohnMilnor’sbookTopologyfromtheDifferential
Viewpoint. Sullivan n knew the book k inside and
out,everydefinition,everyproof.Thedaybefore
theexam,ashetookafinalglancethroughthe
book,itsuddenlyoccurredtohimthathecould
compressthecontentsintoasingle,simplepicture.
Movingbackandforthacrossthestage,heused
gesticulationstoindicatea2-sphereononeside,a
3-sphereontheother,anda“slinky”curvebetween
them.Thiscurve,representingthepreimageofa
regularvalueofamapfromthe3-spheretothe2-
sphere,providedamentalimagesummarizingthe
Pontryagin–Thomconstruction.Ifoneknowsthe
languageofmanifoldsandtransversality,Sullivan
claimed, one e can reconstruct t the whole theory
ofcobordism in differentialtopology just from
theintuitionconveyedbyhisslinkypicture.This
experiencemadehimrealize,“That’swhatitmeans
tounderstandapieceofmathematics.”
Thevisceralcomponentofmathematicalwork
surelyevokesstrongfeelings,butmathematicians
usuallydonotdiscusstheirfeelingsabouttheir
work,atleastnotinpubliclectures.Inanearlier
paneldiscussion,RiikkaStewen,FinnishAcademy
ofFineArts,askedwhethermathematicianshave
stronglove/hatefeelingsabouttheirwork.“Yes,
verystrongfeelings,”cametheimmediatereply
fromamathematicianonthepanel,AndrésVillave-
ces,NationalUniversity ofColombia.Thereisa
lonelinessintheworkofanartist,andmuchmath-
ematicalworksharesthisquality.Justasapainter
facesanemptycanvas,hesaid,“Mathematicians
areupagainsttheemptypageeveryday.”
Thelonging,evendesperation,thatisimplicit
in the remarks s of f Villaveces also emerged in
Sarnak’slecture,titled“Isthereaplacefor‘ugly’
mathematics?”.Sarnak consideredthe situation
where theonly known route to a proofis ugly,
in the e sense of f being g strewn n with long and
complicated calculations and verifications. The
question then becomes, , How w desperate are e we
for a a proof? When Sarnak k gave an example of
an ugly calculation connected with a beautiful
resultinthetheoryofautomorphicforms,Mikhail
Gromov,InstitutdesHautesÉtudesScientifiques
andNewYorkUniversity,pipeduptosay:“Maybe
themathematicsisfine,it’syourmindthat’sugly.”
ThentherewasGromov’slecture.Afishsays:
“Youwanttounderstandwhatwateris?Jumpin
andfindout.”Insteadofplungingin,youcould
study the chemical and physical properties of
water.Butwithouttheexperienceofplunginginto
water,youhavenoframeinwhichtotalkabout
whatwaterreallyis.Similarly,whentheexperience
ofplungingintomathematicsisabsent,thereis
noframeinwhichtotalkaboutwhatmathematics
is—muchlesswhatsimplicityinmathematicsis.
That’sa verbose description ofone moment
thatflashedbyinaninstantinGromov’sstream-of-
consciousnesslecture.HejumpedintoDescartes’s
timeless statement, “Cogito ergo sum m [I I think
August2013
NoticesoftheAMS
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117
thereforeIam]”.Theimportantthinghere,Gromov
said,istheergo,thetherefore.In asense,dogs
think:Muchofwhatgoesoninahumanbrainis
verysimilartowhatgoesoninthebrainofadog.
Surelydogsare.Butdogsdonotunderstandergo.
Thisergoisamajorsourceofthekindofthinking
thatischaracteristicofhumans,Gromovsaid.And
yet,“itiscompletelyhiddenfromus.Andthereis
agoodreasonwhyitishidden.Ifitsurfaces,you
die.Youwillnotsurvive.It’sagainstsurvival,it’s
againstevolution,it’sagainst[natural]selection.”
So it went. Gromov passed d so o quickly y over
so many y topics, diving to the depths, , all the
while leavening the presentation with flashes
of subversive humor. . The effect t was s dizzying.
Afterward,duringtheopenmicrophonesession,
an audience member demandeda one-sentence
summary—withanexample.Animpossiblerequest
tofulfill.Neverthelessitcanbesaidthatoneof
Gromov’smainmessageswas:Guardagainstthe
delusionoffalsesimplicity.Manythingsthatwe
assume at first glance to be simple e are e in fact
highlycomplex.
AfterseeingGromov’seffervescentmindbubble
overforthirtyminutes,audiencememberAlThaler,
knowntomanyforhislongserviceattheNational
ScienceFoundation andnow an adjunct faculty
memberatCUNY’sHunterCollege,commented,“I
couldneverlivelikethat.”
ContrastingGroups
TheSimplicity conferencewasthebrainchildof
mathematician Juliette e Kennedy, , University of
Helsinki,andtwoCUNYmathematicians,Roman
KossakoftheGraduateCenterandPhilipOrding
of Medgar Evers College. The conference was
somethingofafollow-uptoa2007symposium
calledAesthetics and Mathematics, which h took
placeinUtrecht andwasorganizedbyKennedy
and two University y of f Utrecht mathematicians,
RosalieIemhoffandAlbertVisser(Iemhoffwasone
ofthelecturersatSimplicity).Participantsinthe
2007symposiumcoulddropinatanartexhibition
attheMondriaanhuis,LogicUnfettered—European
andAmericanAbstractionNow,whichwascurated
byKennedy.
InadditiontothefilmprogramattheSimplicity
conference,therewasaninstallationofafewworks
byartistKateShepherdinthelobbyoutsidethe
hallwherethelecturesweregiven(Shepherdalso
participatedinoneofthepaneldiscussions).But
spaceconstraintsthere,aswellasthedifficultyof
securingexhibitspaceinNewYorkCity,meantthat
Simplicityofferedfewopportunitiestoexperience
art.Asaresult,artwasrepresentedmainlythrough
thepresenceandwordsoftheartiststhemselves.
By contrast, , the mathematicians couldactually
presentpiecesofmathematicsbyusingacomputer
andabeamer,orevenjustablackboard,inthecase
ofSullivan.Theytriedmightilytoavoidtechnical
details,withimperfectsuccess.
Another contrast was socio-economic. . As
Kennedy pointed d out t in a panel discussion,
the mathematicians and d philosophers at the
conferenceallworkinacademia,whichprovides
economicsecurityandsocialacceptability,while
artistsoftenleadfarmoreprecariouslivesonthe
fringesofsociety.Shenotedthe“heroic”efforts
thatmanyartistsmustputforthinordertocarry
outtheirwork.
What dideach groupabsorb from theother?
It’sdifficulttosay.Oneparticipantobservedthat
mathematicianstendto havea highopinion of
themselves and their own knowledge e and are
thereforenotsoopentonewideas,whileartists
arepretty much the opposite: Receptivenessto
impressionsandinfluencesfroma widevariety
ofsourcesistheartist’slifeblood.Oneartistwho
attended Simplicity,Miyuki Tsushima, saidshe
didn’tfollowallthedetailsofthemathlectures.
Shecouldsimplysitandlettheimpressionswash
overherasshemadesomesketchesforherlatest
work.
Aninspirationfortheconferencewastheso-
called twenty-fourth problem of f David d Hilbert.
Thisproblem, which Hilbert t considered d adding
tohisfamouslistoftwenty-threeproblemsthat
he presented at t the e International l Congress of
MathematiciansinParisin1900,wasunearthedby
RüdigerThiele,UniversityofLeipzig,frompapers
atthelibraryoftheUniversityofGöttingen.Partof
Hilbert’sdescriptionoftheproblemreads:“Criteria
ofsimplicity,orproofofthegreatestsimplicityof
certainproofs.Developatheoryofthemethodof
proofinmathematicsingeneral.Underagivenset
ofconditionstherecanbebutonesimplestproof”
(translation by Thielefromhisarticle“Hilbert’s
24thProblem”,AmericanMathematicalMonthly,
January2003).
Etienne Ghys, École Normale Supérieure e de
Lyon,pointedout thenaiveté ofimaginingthat
suchultimatesimplicity ispossible.Yet, as s the
conference highlighted, , simplicity y as a dream,
asanideal,remainsa powerfulguidinglight in
mathematicsandthearts.AsFrankssaid,there
arenoabsolutenotionsofsimplicity.Butdonot
relinquishthequest.“Onthecontrary,Iwantto
sayyes,findcriteriaforsimplicity,continuetodo
so,”saidFranks.Don’timaginethatthematterwill
everbesettleddefinitively;rather,“returntothe
taskoften.”
Materialsfromsomeofthelecturesareonthe
Simplicityconferencewebsite,http://s-i-m-p-l-
i-c-i-t-y.org,andvideosofsomeofthelectures
willbepostedsoon.
922
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doceamus . . . let us teach
Doceamu
s
between outreach and traditional mathematics
scholarship is dependence on the cooperation of
local school districts and state educational agen-
cies and of teachers at all levels.
Reaction to the 2001 articles was positive. Many
institutions have faculty dedicated to outreach, but
in many cases these faculty were hired in nontenure-
track roles or pursued outreach activities only
when the traditional requirements for tenure and
promotion were met. This is because the typical
reward system may not recognize that an outreach
mathematician should be tenured and promoted
in a manner cognizant of his or her outreach role
as is the case in a traditional track of pure math-
ematical or educational research. Addressing this
issue is critical to any effort to create an outreach
position in a mathematics department.
At the time of the earlier articles, Dwyer was a
tenure-track faculty member in the Department
of Mathematics at the University of Tennessee. In
spite of satisfaction with the job and a high level of
support from the Tennessee mathematics faculty,
for personal reasons, he moved to the M&S depart-
ment at TTU in 2003. When this position became
vacant in 2002, there was mixed support to add
faculty expertise in mathematics education, but
Schovanec, then the department chair, recognized
the potential of adding an outreach faculty mem-
ber. Moving to a new position had its challenges,
including building confidence with the local K–12
community, obtaining support of new colleagues,
and a delay in the tenure and promotion process
for the outreach mathematician.
Outreach Roles and Recognition
At TTU, there are basically three components in
the outreach work: (1) on-campus activity teach-
ing courses, supervising students, and interacting
Two articles describing early experiences of an
outreach mathematician and the chairperson who
advocated for such a role appeared in the Notices
of the American Mathematical Society in 2001
[1], [2]. Several years later, it is timely to reflect
again on the evolving nature of this endeavor. The
first author (Dwyer) of this essay is the outreach
mathematician involved in the earlier articles. The
second author (Schovanec) was the chair of the
Department of Mathematics and Statistics (M&S)
at Texas Tech University (TTU) at the time that
Dwyer was hired in 2003. Schovanec now serves
as the interim president of TTU and previously
was the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. In
each of his administrative roles he has promoted
outreach, engagement, and the associated reward
structures within the university.
Background
Herein we define outreach for a mathematics
department as any activity that enhances the
teaching and learning of mathematics outside the
department, in particular in K–12 education and
community colleges. An outreach mathematician
is not a mathematics education researcher but
is likely to spend considerable time working on
matters that are sometimes within the domain of
mathematics education. A significant difference
Revisiting an Outreach
Mathematician
Jerry Dwyer and Lawrence Schovanec
Jerry Dwyer is professor of mathematics at Texas Tech
University. His email address is jerry.dwyer@ttu.edu.
Lawrence Schovanec is interim president at Texas Tech
University. His email address is lawrence.schovanec@
ttu.edu.
Members of the Editorial Board for Doceamus are: David
Bressoud, Roger Howe, Karen King, William McCallum,
and Mark Saul.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/noti1023
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administering outreach must be reconciled with
the logistics of producing outreach scholarship.
For example, one must address the use of human
subjects, Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval,
and access to K–12 populations, issues often for-
eign to traditional mathematics research. There
are also both a shortage of appropriate publication
outlets and reservations from colleagues concern-
ing the quality of scholarship that results from
outreach activities.
A significant development in support of out-
reach at TTU occurred in 2012 when the university
adopted a revised tenure and promotion policy
that recognized outreach and community engage-
ment as part of a faculty member’s contributions
to teaching, research, or service. Even if a discus-
sion of outreach and community engagement does
not rise to the university level, a mathematics
department should consider amending the reward
and promotion structure to take into account the
nontraditional role of an outreach mathematician.
The mathematics department at TTU has recently
adopted such a clause in its promotion and tenure
documents. For the record, Dwyer obtained tenure
and eventually promotion to full professor, the
first such case in his department.
Institutional Perspective
From the viewpoint of Schovanec as chair and
then dean, there are new opportunities, rewards,
and frustrations related to outreach mathematics.
As chair of a traditional research department at a
large state university, he found enthusiasm and ap-
preciation for mathematics outreach at the higher
levels of university administration not always com-
mensurate with departmental support.
The goodwill and publicity derived from out-
reach activities translated into enhanced financial
support of the department and a perception of
departmental vitality. The Texas Senate recog-
nized the M&S department when it was awarded
the Texas Association of Partners in Education
Award, in large part due to activities initiated by
Dwyer and his colleagues in the department. Pub-
licity events for major grants garnered significant
attention and increased the visibility of the M&S
department at local and regional levels. Further-
more, collaborations with local school districts
and regional colleges and alliances with teachers
enhanced student recruitment and presented
greater opportunities for research and funding.
Since Dwyer arrived at TTU, he has played a
critical role in the growing culture of outreach
and engagement that now receives greater institu-
tional recognition. Most recently Dwyer has been
featured as an Integrated Scholar [4], a distinction
that TTU has enlisted to recognize contributions
to teaching, research, and service, where outreach
is recognized as a component of all three areas.
In 2006, TTU was the first Texas university to
be included in the Community Engagement
with faculty in other departments who have inter-
ests that are aligned with outreach activities; (2)
organizing locally and regionally funded outreach
activities such as K–12 school visits and summer
programs; and (3) serving on national committees
and participating on panels at various meetings.
There has been a progression in how these roles
have been developed. Master’s theses have been
completed and a mathematics education concen-
tration has been added to the mathematics Ph.D.
program that provides opportunities for train-
ing mathematicians in the newer outreach roles.
Personal school visits have been reduced, while
teacher workshops and collaboration with school
districts have increased. Grant writing has evolved.
Though proposals are still submitted to local foun-
dations with a history of supporting educational
programs unique to TTU, a large commitment is
now tied to substantial federal funding requests,
often of a collaborative nature.
The major issues facing an outreach mathema-
tician are similar to those of traditional faculty.
There is a need to seek funding and to publish
scholarly articles. A progression from small funded
proposals to larger ones has resulted in significant
support for outreach projects. Some of the activi-
ties for which funding has been obtained include
girls’ math clubs, pre-engineering and mathematics
academy summer programs, and several National
Science Foundation programs primarily related to
teacher training and scholarship programs. Com-
mon objectives of these programs include: increas-
ing the number and diversity of students in STEM
programs; enhancing undergraduate research
opportunities in the sciences; and growing the
number of teachers in STEM areas while enhancing
opportunities for teacher preparation.
One award, which is reflective of the matura-
tion of outreach activities at TTU, is the Integrated
STEM Initiative on the South Plains [3, http://
www.depts.ttu.edu/stem/isisp.php]. This
NSF program provides funding for the integration
of outreach programs and stimulates changes in
the campus culture related to STEM education
and outreach. It may be argued that the hiring of
an outreach mathematician provided the catalyst
and leadership for a more cohesive campus-wide
approach to outreach grant writing. As a result,
over the last several years more than $12 million in
funding has significantly affected STEM education
and outreach projects at TTU. Somewhat ironically,
in light of increased funding, a new challenge has
been to maintain a focus on the original depart-
mental expectations of the outreach position.
Dwyer has had to curtail his role in grass roots
activities in order to administer existing projects
and coordinate new collaborative programs.
The topic of publication can be a challenge
for one in a nontraditional academic role such
as an outreach mathematician. The demands of
74
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Classification of the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching; it is regularly recog-
nized in the president’s Higher Education Com-
munity Service Honor Roll. This distinction is
partially based on data reflective of TTU’s strategic
priority to expand community engagement and
evidence of extensive faculty-led community col-
laborations. Since 2009, TTU has annually assessed
the institution’s community engagement activity
utilizing Michigan State’s Outreach and Engage-
ment Measurement Instrument (OEMI). Texas Tech
has been represented in national and international
conversations on institutional mission and assess-
ment of community engagement.
Another promising development is the creation
of a TTU university-wide multidisciplinary STEM
Center for Outreach, Research, and Education. The
center, for which Dwyer serves as director, is sup-
ported by six colleges at TTU. This university-wide
participation in the center in some ways reflects
both authors’ vision for the recognition and insti-
tutionalization of outreach at TTU.
References
[1.] J. B. Conway, Reflections of a department head on
outreach mathematics, Notices of the AMS 48 (10),
(2001), 1169–1172.
[2.] J. F. Dwyer, Reflections of an outreach mathemati-
cian, Notices of the AMS 48 (10), (2001), 1173–1175.
[3.] Integrated STEM Initiative on the South Plains (ISISP),
NSF award No. 0930257, September 1, 2009–August
31, 2014.
[4.] Bob Smith, Texas Tech Integrated Scholars, All
Things Texas Tech, 3(2), (2011), http://www.depts.
ttu.edu/provost/attt/.
Call for Proposals
Workshop Program
AIM invites proposals for its focused workshop
program. AIM’s workshops are distinguished by
their specific mathematical goals. 周is may involve
making progress on a significant unsolved problem
or examining the convergence of two distinct areas
of mathematics. Workshops are small in size, up to
28 people, to allow for close collaboration among the
participants.
SQuaREs Program
AIM also invites proposals for a new program called
SQuaREs, Structured Quartet Research Ensembles.
More long-term in nature, this program brings
together groups of four to six researchers for a week
of focused work on a specific research problem in
consecutive years.
More details are available at:
AIM, the American Institute of Mathematics, sponsors
week-long activities in all areas of the mathematical
sciences with an emphasis on focused collaborative
research.
http://www.aimath.org/research/
deadline: November 1
AIM seeks to promote diversity in the research mathematics
community. We encourage proposals which include significant
participation of women, underrepresented minorities, junior
scientists, and researchers from primarily undergraduate
institutions.
72
...writtenwordsendure
What We Are Doing
about the High Cost
of Textbooks
TheAIMEditorialBoard
Let’sbeginwiththeobvious:Thepriceoftextbooks
hasrisenmuchfasterthanthecostoflivingover
the last t thirty years, , but t there e has not t been a
significant increase e in their quality. . We don’t
proposetoanalyzetheeconomicandeducational
factorsthat underlie thisphenomenon.Instead,
we will describe our r efforts to o help lower r the
cost of textbooks for r standard d undergraduate
mathematicscoursesinNorthAmericancolleges
anduniversities.
TheAIMEditorialBoardconsistsofDavidAustin,George
Jennings,KentE.Morrison,Frank Sottile,and d Katherine
Yoshiwara.
DavidAustinisprofessorofmathematicsatGrandValley
StateUniversity.Hisemailaddressisaustind@gvsu.edu.
GeorgeJenningsisprofessorofmathematicsatCalifornia
State University, Dominguez Hills. . His s email l address s is
gjennings@csudh.edu.
Kent E. Morrison is emeritus professor of mathematics
atCalPoly,SanLuisObispo,and now affiliatedwiththe
AmericanInstitute of Mathematics.Hisemail addressis
morrison@aimath.org.
FrankSottileisprofessorofmathematicsatTexasA&M.His
emailaddressissottile@math.tamu.edu.
Katherine Yoshiwara is professor r of mathematics
at Pierce College. . Her email l address is yoshiwka@
piercecollege.edu.
MembersoftheEditorialBoardforScriptaManentare:Jon
Borwein, ThierryBouche,John Ewing, Andrew w Odlyzko,
AnnOkerson.
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/noti1025
We make upthe AIM M (American n Institute of
Mathematics)EditorialBoard,whichispartofa
largerNSFproject
1
todevelopopensourcesoft-
wareandcurriculummaterialsforundergraduate
mathematicseducation. Opentextbookscan be
“openaccess”,meaningtheyarefreely available
indigitalformat,or“opensource”,meaningtheir
sourcefilesarefreelyavailable.Ourprojecthopes
toovercometwoobstaclesfacedbytextbooks:It’s
hardtofindthem,andit’shardtoknowwhich
onesaregood.
Let’ssay youarescheduledtoteachabstract
algebranext term.Howdoyouchoosethetext?
Youmayusethebookyouusedlasttime,orthe
bookyouhadasastudent(yes,Herstein isstill
availableinpaperbackfor$111),oryoumayask
yourcolleaguenextdoorforarecommendation.
Or you may decideto lookforan open source
textbook.
Searchforfreeabstractalgebratextsandyou
will get two o million n results or more. . You will
findthatthetop150entriesorsoactuallylook
promising, but t then you u notice e that t some are
duplicatesandsomearelinkstopiratedversions.
Manyofthempointtosupplementalnotes,exercise
solutions,andothermaterialrelatedtothebooks.
Veryfewareactuallylinkstoentiretextbooksthat
1
InformationaboutProjectUTMOST(UndergraduateTeach-
inginMathematicswithOpenSoftwareandTexts)canbe
foundathttp://utmost.aimath.org.
August2013
NoticesoftheAMS
927
112
canbeobtainedwithoutcost.Thenittakestimeto
followthelinksandreadenoughtodecidewhether
ornotabookisaviablecandidateforyourcourse.
Withourprojectweareworkingtofind,evaluate,
andpromoteopentextbooksinmathematics.We
have created d a short “approved list” of open
textbooksorganizedbycoursename,withalink
to each book’s s website. . We encourage authors
tomaintainanactivewebsitewithmoredetailed
informationabouttheirbooks,aswellaserrata
sheets,linkstoreviews,courseadoptionlists,and
contactinformationforcommentsandcorrections.
Such a website can help create e an n ecosystem
aroundabooksothatotherscancontributetoits
improvement.Anopentextbookcanbeashared
community resource that remains current and
won’tgooutofprint.
The criteria a we use e to o approve books are
describedindetailonourwebsite.
2
Inbrief,we
arelookingforbooksthatcanservewellasthe
requiredtextinacourse.Wecontactfacultywho
haveactuallyusedthebookstofindoutwhatthey
think.Dotheyrecommendthebookinquestion?
Would they y use it t again? Although h we do not
require that the books be available in n printed
format,werecommendthatauthorsarrangefor
printinganddistribution by companiessuch as
LightningSource,Lulu,Amazon,orBarnes&Noble.
Therearecurrentlytwenty-onebooksinthirteen
courses on the approved list. Some e of them
beganascommerciallypublishedtextbookswhose
copyrights were returnedtotheauthor.Others
beganaslecturenotesandevolvedintopolished
textswhileremainingopenaccess.
Tom Judson’s s AbstractAlgebra:Theoryand
Applications,first publishedby PWS in 1994, , is
anexampleofhowatextbookcanbecomeopen
source.Aftergettingthecopyrightback,Judson
released the text as open source e with h a GNU
Free Documentation License. . The e mathematics
departmentofVirginiaCommonwealthUniversity
took the LAT
E
X source, invested d some time in
formattingandediting,andarrangedforLightning
SourcetoprintandbindthebookandforAmazon
tosellit.Thepriceisonly$20(hardcover)andthe
entirePDFversionisavailablefornocostatthe
book’swebsite.Youandyourstudentscanprint
yourowncopiesorjustthepagesyouwant.You
canarrangeforaphotocopystoreoryourcampus
bookstoretoprintcopiesforallofyou,atacostas
lowas$10.Ofcourse,youdon’thavetoprintitat
all;youcanreaditonyourcomputerornotebook.
There isalsoa digitalversion in which each
chapterisaSagenotebookthatallowsimmediate
computationwithSage,andthereareSagenote-
booksthatcontainjusttheexercises.(Sageisfree
opensourcesoftware.)
2
http://www.aimath.org/textbooks/
SomeofthebooksarereleasedwiththeGNU
Free Documentation License mentioned above,
whilemanyhaveaCreativeCommonslicensethat
ismorerestrictiveinthatitdoesnotallowothers
tosellthebookforprofitbutdoesallowthemto
chargethenominalcostofprinting.Finally,afew
ofthebooksarecommerciallypublished,sothat
the publishersretain alltherightstoprintand
distributehardcopies,butwithopenaccessPDF
versionsthatcanbeprintedforindividualuse.
What motivatesauthorstoforego the oppor-
tunitytoearnmoneyfromtheirhardwork?For
many itistheexperiencegainedfromwritinga
commercially publishedbookthatdidnot yield
richreturns,sotheprofitmotiveisweakforthe
nextbook.Authorswouldlike theirwork to be
usedandappreciated,sotheywouldliketomake
itwidelyavailable.Formanyaprimarymotivation
isthedesireto do somethingbeneficialfor the
world.
Ifyou’dliketocontributetotheopensource
movement,herearesomethingsyoucando.Give
seriousconsiderationtoopentextbooks,andlet
your colleagues know about them,too. Let t the
authorsknowwhenyouusetheirtextsandbecome
partofthecommunitybygivingfeedback,tracking
errors and typos, and contributing supplemen-
tary material. Contribute a a book k review w to o the
OpenAcademicCatalogattheUniversityofMin-
nesota (http://open.umn.edu), where reviews
andratingsofopentextsinallsubjects—notjust
mathematics—arebeingcollected.
Now that we have e evaluated d a number r of
books,weseetheneedforpracticaladviceand
guidanceforauthorswhowanttoproduceopen
sourcematerials.Wearecreatingacollectionof
recommendedpracticesforallaspectsofwriting
andpublishingopenmathematicstextbooks,both
in the e current t environment, where e most t books
are read d in a static version as PDF files s or as
printed copy, , and d in the e new w environment t of
constantInternetconnectivity,mobiledevices,and
cloudcomputing.In afuturecolumn wewould
liketodiscussthechallengesandopportunities
thatanauthorfacesundertheserapidlychanging
conditions.
928
NoticesoftheAMS
Volume60,Number7
74
Mathematics People
A
ugust
2013
N
otices
of
the
AMs
929
Mathematics People
Smith Awarded Adams Prize
Ivan Smith of the University of Cambridge has been
awarded the 2013 Adams Prize. This year’s topic was
topology.
According to Tim Gowers, chairman of the Adams
Prize Adjudicators, Smith “has proved several beautiful
and important results in symplectic topology. With Simon
Donaldson, he found new proofs of some major results
of Taubes that were simpler and that avoided delicate
use of machinery from outside symplectic topology. With
Paul Seidel, he attacked the problem of understanding the
nature of Khovanov cohomology, a mysterious but very
useful invariant. They developed a geometric definition
that was later shown, by Smith and Abouzaid, to be an
alternative definition of Khovanov cohomology. Also with
Abouzaid, he showed that the famous homological mirror
symmetry conjecture of Kontsevich is true for any product
when it is true for the factors: this yielded new examples
of manifolds for which the conjecture holds. With Seidel
he proved a conjecture of Eliashberg and Gromov, showing
that there are well-behaved exotic symplectic structures on
Euclidean space. These are just a few of the achievements
that caused Smith to stand out from a very strong field.”
The Adams Prize is awarded each year jointly by the
Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and
St. John’s College to a young researcher or researchers
based in the United Kingdom doing first-class interna-
tional research in the mathematical sciences. The prize is
named after the mathematician John Couch Adams and
was endowed by members of St. John’s College. It carries
a cash prize of approximately £14,000 (about US$21,000),
of which one-third is awarded to the prizewinner on
announcement of the prize, one-third is provided to
the prizewinner’s institution (for research expenses of
the prizewinner), and one-third is awarded to the
prizewinner on acceptance for publication in an interna-
tionally recognized journal of a substantial (normally at
least twenty-five printed pages) original survey article of
which the prizewinner is an author.
—From a University of Cambridge announcement
Goldblatt Awarded Jones
Medal
Robert Goldblatt of the Victoria University of Welling-
ton has been awarded the 2012 Jones Medal by the Royal
Society of New Zealand. According to the prize citation,
Goldblatt was honored “for his profound and world-
leading research in modal logic and category theory, and
his lifetime of dedicated service to mathematics.” He “has
become one of the world’s leading authorities in modal
logic. In this system, statements can be much more than
simply true or false: they can be, say, necessarily true, pos-
sibly true, or eventually true. This flexible logic is at the
heart of basic software engineering and the commercial
program and chip verification industry. Modal logic is
interdisciplinary, overlapping mathematics, philosophy,
linguistics, and computer science.”
—From a Royal Society of New Zealand announcement
Bondarenko Awarded Popov
Prize 2013
Andriy Bondarenko of Kiev University has been awarded
the 2013 Vasil A. Popov Prize. According to the prize cita-
tion, he was honored “for his outstanding contributions
to approximation theory. He along with Radchenko and
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