Word: mathes
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...people chosen to represent a cross section of adults. Over a period of four years, all subjects were interviewed and given between 35 and 40 tests, drawn from a bank of 185 prepared for the survey. The tasks simulated real-life situations, calling upon basic reading and math competence and the ability to interpret charts, graphs and timetables, and were assigned degrees of difficulty on a scale of 0 to 500. Thus totaling the sums on a bank-deposit slip rated a 191; calculating the costs, including handling and shipping, of a catalog order garnered...
Cambridge also ranked 32 out of 39 schools in Boston and the surrounding areas in the percentage of students performing at or above grade level on standardized achievement test in 12th grade math and eighth grade science...
Florence J. Lin of the University of California at Berkeley (applied math); Catherine Magill-Solc of Harvard (molecular embryology); Patricia Cleary Miller of Rockhurst College (poetry); Debra C. Minkoff of Yale University (sociology); Virginia Newes of the Eastman School of Music (musicology); Hanna Papanek of Boston University (nonfiction); Ann Patchett, an independent writer (fiction and non-fiction) and Susan Power of the University of Iowa (fiction...
Wiles' solution comes at the theorem in a different way. What he actually proved was an important part of another math puzzle, known in the trade as the Taniyama Conjecture, which deals with the equations that describe mathematical objects known as elliptic curves. Just six years ago, Berkeley's Ribet demonstrated that proving this conjecture was tantamount to proving Fermat's Last Theorem. "What is amazing about Wiles' proof," says Boston, "is that while it built on previous attempts, Andrew realized how to put all these complicated pieces together...
Wiles' proof is historic, but the subfields of mathematics generated along the way by people working to solve Fermat's theorem are full of perplexing problems, and so are other areas of math. A proof of Fermat's famous theorem by no means brings any line of inquiry to an end. Still bedeviling mathematicians are the Poincare Conjecture, the Riemann Hypothesis, Goldbach's Conjecture, Kepler's sphere-packing problem and dozens of others. There are, in short, enough mind-bending challenges to keep mathematicians busy for at least the next 350 years...