Only Female Fields Medalist Dies from an Illness Particular to her Sex
Sunday evening two days ago I had a follow-up conversation with a young mathematician, a son of members of my ward. A couple years ago I asked him about his area of work, but there wasn’t much for me to connect with—something vague about mapping manifolds. The Sunday before last I saw him again at a reception for a departing missionary couple and learned that he will begin a post-doctoral position in Finland, so I asked him, “Why Finland?” “Well, Finland is a small place, so the math research there is focused on a particular area that happens to be my area. I’ll be working with my PhD advisor’s advisor.” “And what is that area?” I asked, fearing that the answer would be as vague as before. Instead he simply said, “Complex analysis.”
There couldn’t have been an answer of more interest to me. I spend a large portion of my working hours (the best portion) developing equations describing hydrodynamic forces and moments. Complex analysis provides the tools I draw from to do this. I employ conformal mapping of two-dimensional domains, and I’ve sometimes wished it could be applied in three dimensions. Alas, the only conformal mappings available in three dimensions are uniform scaling and translation of the whole space, which is not useful. I said all this to the young mathematician.
“You should look at quasi-regular mappings.” So, I did look a bit into them, and they may be what I need. Sunday evening I took in a “Why I Believe” devotional presented by the Washington DC North Mission in the temple visitor center auditorium. Two new converts addressed the subject and also historian, author, and sealer Richard Bushman and his wife. The mathematician was also there, and afterwards I had him write down some reading suggestions. This morning I went to the American Mathematical Society’s website to order Lars Ahlfors’ Lectures on Quasiconformal Mappings, and there on the AMS homepage was the news that Maryam Mirzakhani died Friday. “Her more-recent work (with A. Eskin and A. Mohammadi) constitutes one of the most sought-after advances in the area known as ‘Teichmüller dynamics.'” The sixth chapter of the Ahlfors monograph I ordered is titled “Teichmüller spaces,” which I don’t know anything about yet, but perhaps Miss Mirzakhani and her fellow frontier explorers have come up with concepts that a minor practitioner can apply.
Maryam Mirzakhani is one of the four most recent recipients of the quadrennial Fields Medal. Lars Ahlfors and Jesse Douglas were the first. Ahlfors wrote of his:
I can give one very definite benefit [of winning a Fields Medal]. When I was able to leave Finland to go to Sweden [in August 1944], I was not allowed to take more than 10 crowns with me, and I wanted to take a train to where my wife was waiting for me. So what did I do? I smuggled out my Fields Medal, and I pawned it in the pawn shop and got enough money. I had no other way, no other way at all. And I’m sure that it’s the only Fields Medal that has been in a pawn shop. . . As soon as I got a little money, some people in Switzerland helped me retrieve it.
As might be expected of a recent Fields medalist, Miss Mirzakhani was relatively young at the time of her death from breast cancer. The hazards that men should shoulder balance against the risk inherent in women’s reproductive role, which in earlier centuries killed women earlier than men on average. The risks from pregnancy and delivery are obvious, but even the potential for fertility brings with it the potential for death. For example, my mother’s ovaries killed her when she was 38, and many women’s breasts kill them.
Zen
July 18, 2017
It may not be useful for your purposes, but I have done conformal transforms in 3D using Clifford Algebra in Mobius transform matricies. It is particularly good at rotations (proper and otherwise).
But if you have an interest and knowledge of Complex Analysis, I may have a question for you later. I am attempting an audacious math problem, though I am more of a physicist at heart than a pure mathematician.
Ivan Wolfe
July 18, 2017
“an illness particular to her sex” – not trying to take away from the otherwise excellent post, but breast cancer does happen in men:
http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/guide/breast-cancer-men#1
“Even though men don’t have breasts like women, they do have a small amount of breast tissue. The “breasts” of an adult man are similar to the breasts of a girl before puberty. In girls, this tissue grows and develops, but in men, it doesn’t.
But because it is still breast tissue, men can get breast cancer. Men get the same types of breast cancers that women do, but cancers involving the parts that make and store milk are rare . . . The major problem is that breast cancer in men is often diagnosed later than breast cancer in women. This may be because men are less likely to be suspicious of something strange in that area. Also, their small amount of breast tissue is harder to feel, making it harder to catch these cancers early. It also means tumors can spread more quickly to surrounding tissues.”
Vader
July 18, 2017
Hmm. I wondered if Clifford algebras might be useful for 3-D conformal transformations, but feared to say anything and look stupid.
John Mansfield
July 19, 2017
Zen and Vader, what have you found yourselves doing with Clifford algebras? I use conformal transformations to map oval-ish contours onto circles where potential flow boundary conditions are described easily and flow formulations easily constructed. The derivative of the transform enters into the motion of vortices and the contour integral formulation of force and moment. I would like to map 3-D eggs onto spheres.
From http://www.cancer.org:
And:
Vader
July 19, 2017
I’m not doing anything professionally with Clifford algebras. Purely personal interest, stirred by my interest in physics generally and by sites like this one. There used to be an excellent web page intro here, but it’s disappeared.
Ivan Wolfe
July 19, 2017
JM – however, “particular to” usually means that it is unique for that prepositional object; it is not the same as “that mostly affects” or “100 times more likely to affect.”
John Mansfield
July 19, 2017
I actually started with “Unique to her Sex” but decided before posting to change to “Particular to her Sex,” since breast cancer in men does exist even though it is rare. I checked the stats before posting.
How to write is something you teach, Ivan. How would you have composed the title, limiting it to a title-like length, to bring out the juxtaposition that the only woman ever recognized with a prestigious award that has been offered to 55 men died at a young age from a disease that overwhelming kills more women than men? Or if you could only substitute the word “particular” in my title, is there a single word that you would prefer in its place?
G.
July 20, 2017
“Particular” is better than “unique,” but I might prefer “an illness of her sex.” But I thought the title was charming.
Ivan Wolfe
July 20, 2017
JM – to be honest, despite me liking the overall post, I don’t like the title at all; I would probably tell my students to find a different one. However, if you had to go with it, I would likely suggest “associated with” or “correlated with” or perhaps “identified with.”
G.
July 21, 2017
Which would result in a more academic/bureaucratic and less literary title.
Ivan Wolfe
July 21, 2017
I don’t really understand that comment, since the main reason I don’t care for the title is that it sounds too academic/bureaucratic. But this is quibbling over a minor matter.