2005 Media Releases
Monday, 6 June 2005
‘Lord of the Lattices’ visits La Trobe University
How can we better communicate maths?
Professor George Grätzer – one of the world’s most distinguished mathematicians and researchers in lattice theory and universal algebra – is visiting La Trobe University’s Institute for Advanced Study.
There, on Friday, 10 June, at 2 pm, he will give a public lecture, titled: Should we convey mathematical ideas in publications? Professor Grätzer says the answer is a unanimous ‘yes’.
But he argues while mathematicians, as a rule, are very good at conveying mathematical ideas in person, in publications they confine themselves to a ‘skeleton’ of definitions, theorems and proofs – therefore rarely reaching wider audiences.
Having just finished writing a book that he says ‘may be considered a first attempt to write about mathematics the way we talk about it’, his lecture will illustrate how maths should be communicated.
Professor Grätzer’s field of lattice theory and algebra play critical roles in the information age – in computer science and engineering. They are used for programming languages and data mining, as well as in other areas of mathematics, such as number theory and group theory.
At La Trobe University, Professor Grätzer is working with Dr Brian Davey, Associate Professor in Mathematics, who runs one of Australia’s leading centres for this type of advanced mathematics research. The La Trobe centre regularly attracts prominent mathematicians from Oxford University and other key European and American universities.
Professor Grätzer is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba, Canada. Born in Hungary, he has lived and worked in North America since 1963.
He has published 18 books, including six on LaTeX – a computer programming language for typesetting mathematical papers and textbooks used by almost every mathematician in the world – and more than 200 research papers. He is also founder and Editor in Chief of the journal Algebra Universalis, first published in 1970.
Professor Grätzer’s most famous work established an important link between lattices and universal algebra. With life-long collaborator, Tamás Schmidt, he proved a theorem, now known as the Grätzer-Schmidt Theorem, that underpins this field of knowledge.
The research group he established at the University of Manitoba in 1966 remains one of the international focal points for research in lattice theory and universal algebra. Among the graduate students attracted to Professor Grätzer’s group at the University of Manitoba was La Trobe’s Dr Davey, who obtained his PhD in 1975 under Professor Grätzer’s supervision.
Dr Davey describes Professor Grätzer as the ‘mathematical grandfather’ of his own students at La Trobe, who will get a chance to meet and work with Professor Grätzer during his stay at La Trobe University’s Institute for Advanced Study.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Foreign Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Professor Grätzer will also be awarded an honorary doctorate by La Trobe University in recognition of his work and links with the University.
Professor Grätzer can be contacted through Dr Davey , Tel: (03) 9479 2599, or the Institute for Advanced Study, Tel: (03) 03 9479 3461.
For further information:
Professor Grätzer can be contacted through Dr Davey, Tel: (03) 9479 2599, or the Institute for Advanced Study, Tel: (03) 03 9479 3461.