Julie Rehmeyer

is a freelance math and science writer who writes the Math Trek column at Science News (http://bit.ly/mathtrek). She also writes frequently for Discover Magazine and Wired. She studied algebraic topology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Voevodsky’s Mathematical Revolution

On last Thursday at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, Vladimir Voevodsky gave perhaps the most revolutionary scientific talk I’ve ever heard. I doubt if it generated much buzz among the young scientists in advance, though, because …

01. Oct 2013 | By Julie Rehmeyer | 0 comments

A very busy man

During the boat trip yesterday, I chatted briefly with Cédric Villani. The conversation was brief because he was in great demand, having arrived just the day before and leaving that evening. “Two days!” he said. …

27. Sep 2013 | By Julie Rehmeyer | 0 comments

Assuring the integrity of voting using cryptography

American voters have no way of knowing that our votes have been counted, or counted correctly. We go to the polls and we punch buttons on a screen or fill out paper ballots and put …

26. Sep 2013 | By Julie Rehmeyer | 0 comments

The future role of computers in mathematics

At the end of the forum yesterday afternoon, the mathematics laureates took questions from the audience. One of the questions was about the role of computers in checking and generating proofs. The response of the …

25. Sep 2013 | By Julie Rehmeyer | 0 comments

Cobblestones

Heidelberg is a gorgeous city — ancient, beautifully built, walkable (at least this part). There’s a castle up on the hill, gorgeous old buildings, and narrow streets paved with cobblestones. And whoever it was who …

25. Sep 2013 | By Julie Rehmeyer | 0 comments

Making computers smarter, and helping deaf people too

A friend of mine is very hard of hearing — not quite deaf enough to fully belong to the deaf community, but sufficiently deaf that participating in a conversation is terribly hard work for her. …

24. Sep 2013 | By Julie Rehmeyer | 0 comments

Isadore Singer

I’m at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum at the moment, where they’ve brought 39 winners of the biggest prizes in math and computer science together with young researchers, modeled on the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. The …

23. Sep 2013 | By Julie Rehmeyer | 1 comment

The most unhelpful possible way to prove something

Computer science, I think, gets even more neglected by science journalists than math does. Oh, sure, the next iPhone release gets lots of media attention, but that has little to do with how most computer …

21. Sep 2013 | By Julie Rehmeyer | 1 comment

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