Fields Medals Point to Importance of Dynamics

Writing for Slate, Jordan Ellenberg notes that two of the four 2014 Fields medalists—Maryam Mirzakhani and Artur Avila—are dynamicists and offers a primer on this relatively new but obviously quite lively branch of mathematics.

Mathematicians care about dynamics, Ellenberg explains, because the study of any system whose behavior over time is controlled by a simple rule can shed light on such fundamentals as the physics of a gas. 

And there's more: "There’s hardly any part of math that hasn’t been injected with dynamics," Ellenberg writes. "Dynamical systems have changed the nature of math, and they are here to stay."

Read the piece.