The Foundation hosted a conference on ‘Mathematics in Today’s World’, which was attended by an overwhelming number of interested participants who packed the venue. The conference coordinator, Manuel López Pellicer – a senior researcher, professor of Mathematics and member of the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (RACV) – expressed his enthusiasm at the start and introduced the speakers, who discussed Economics, Artificial Intelligence, Data, statistics and probability, aeronautics and astronautics; there was even a final presentation by a young mathematician who focused his talk on the role of mathematics in society.

The conference was opened by the Foundation’s Executive President, Javier Quesada, who noted that “Mathematics features amongst our awards, as it is included in the Basic Research Award, which already counts several previous winners in this category”. Following his welcome address, it was the turn of the conference coordinator, who began his speech with a heartfelt tribute to two great mathematicians: Jorge Juan, from Novelda in Alicante, and Manuel Valdivia, from Martos, Jaén, in Andalusia. López Pellicer recounted how Jorge Juan solved, amongst other things, two great mysteries: the shape of the Earth and the calculation of the length of the meridian.

Carmen Herrero, winner of the 2017 Rei Jaume I Prize in Economics, spoke about mathematics in the world of economics and explained the concept of equity and “how to distribute resources when there are not enough, how to allocate indivisible goods, how to distribute the benefits of cooperation, or how to allocate seats in the Congress of Deputies, for example”. She also spoke about discrimination and stated that “disadvantage is relative, but the questions of what, how and when to compare arise, and that is one way of measuring discrimination”.

The third speaker was José Duato, another recipient of the Rei Jaume I Prize for New Technologies in 2006, who explained how Artificial Intelligence (AI) works. “A generic, adaptive algorithm, like chewing gum, enabling it to learn automatically on its own.” He went on to break down the inner workings of AI as a system that “trains neural networks, activates neurons, possesses activation functions and performs weighted sums of each input, using activation patterns”, but he also warned “of the environmental problem that may arise from facilitating the transfer of data, which consumes a great deal of energy”.

María Ángeles Gil, Professor of Statistics at the University of Oviedo, spoke of “statistics as a means of conveying information through a mathematical formula and data analysis that depends on how the data evolves; however, with the support of information technology and computing, this can be achieved today” She also explained the role of statistics “in understanding how a variable behaves within a population in order to draw conclusions.” And to move from descriptive statistics to inferential statistics, she explained that “the theory of productivity is required”.

Antonio Torres, an aeronautical engineer, spoke about a topic that is very much in the news at the moment: aeronautics and astronautics, “covering liquid-fuelled rockets and avionics instruments such as the altimeter, the anemometer, the artificial horizon and the heading indicator”, amongst other examples of the use of mathematics in his profession. He also explained “that the mathematics involved are those of Newtonian dynamics and the aerodynamic theory of velocity potential”.

And finally, the student and maths populariser Nicolás Atanes spoke about the need for maths in society and wondered why it is not as popular as football. Atanes defended its importance “for making important decisions in politics, in football itself, or even in a restaurant”. He emphasised that “mathematics has always been there, and you don’t need to be a mathematician to enjoy it”, and so he urged people to experience and enjoy it without fear.

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