In Ukraine, Mathematics Offers Strength in Numbers

On a Saturday night in August, two Ukrainian mathematicians, Maryna Viazovska and Masha Vlasenko, set out on a 19-hour prepare journey from Warsaw to Kyiv. They have been en path to a convention titled “Numbers in the Universe: Recent Advances in Number Theory and Its Applications.” Symbolically, the journey served to plant a flag.

The occasion marked the opening of the International Center for Mathematics in Ukraine, or I.C.M.U., which was established on paper in November. “The goal is to bring the world of mathematics to Ukraine and open, or reopen, Ukrainian science for the world,” stated Dr. Viazovska, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. She gained a Fields Medal in 2022 and serves as scientific lead on the middle’s coordination committee.

“Making this investment is of course meaningful from a strictly scientific point of view,” stated Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, the chair of the middle’s supervisory board and a former president of the European Research Council, “but also in terms of how Ukraine can redevelop after the end of the war in a way which is meaningful economically. Highly trained mathematical people are going to be a key factor.”

The middle’s first main donor, XTX Markets, an algorithmic buying and selling firm in London, promised to match funds raised as much as a million euros for a yr. So far, the French authorities has contributed 200,000 euros.

The middle’s inaugural convention drew 75 individuals on the Kyiv School of Economics, a venue chosen for its bomb shelter, which was appropriate for lectures and geared up with whiteboards, backup energy and web. (The search is on for a everlasting house within the metropolis.) Simultaneously, through dwell video, the convention proceeded in Warsaw, on the Stefan Banach International Mathematical Center, the place 110 individuals attended. The parallel areas have been essential since martial regulation prevented grownup Ukrainian males ages 18 to 60 from touring outdoors the nation, and the organizers have been hesitant to ask international individuals right into a conflict zone.

No Such Place Until Now

Dr. Vlasenko, from the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw and a member of the I.C.M.U. coordination committee, had lengthy dreamed of making a arithmetic analysis institute in Ukraine. The catalyst was the conflict, she stated, coupled with Dr. Viazovska’s Fields Medal. On the best way to the convention — whereas ready for a midnight connecting prepare on the station in Chelm, Poland — the 2 students had espresso with a couple of extra conference-bound mathematicians and mentioned rising up in Ukraine finding out arithmetic.

“The generations change, but they have the same feeling,” Dr. Vlasenko stated. There is a deep custom of science and math within the nation, however within the final a number of many years, partially as a consequence of underfunding, there was a large mind drain, she stated, as college students and researchers really feel they need to go elsewhere to advance.

Dr. Viazovska, who’s initially from Kyiv, attended the Technical University of Kaiserslautern in Germany for her grasp’s research. “I was very young, and it felt like an adventure,” she stated. “I had the idea I will go there, I will study, and then I will come back. I didn’t realize that it was very difficult to come back.” She went on to do her Ph.D. on the University of Bonn in Germany.

Dr. Vlasenko, who can be from Kyiv, acquired her Ph.D. from the Institute of Mathematics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine after which was a postdoc on the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. When she first noticed the library there, “it turned my world upside down,” she stated. “There is no such place in Ukraine.” She added, “There is no such place until now.”

About three-quarters of the convention individuals have been college students and younger mathematicians, and a sequence of multilecture programs and problem-solving classes was directed at them. In Kyiv, Dr. Viazovska delivered 4 lectures on sphere packing. From Warsaw, Terence Tao, of the University of California, Los Angeles, and a 2006 Fields medalist, taught a course on prime numbers and associated subjects.

“It was a surprisingly pleasant and normal mathematics conference,” Dr. Tao famous in an e mail afterward. The focus was not the conflict however the arithmetic, he stated, and the 2 websites shared lighthearted banter: “‘Kyiv, do you have any questions?’ No, Kyiv understood everything. ‘Warsaw, do you have any questions?’”

Yulia’s Dream

The convention’s youngest individuals have been two college students from Yulia’s Dream, a brand new on-line enrichment program for Ukrainian excessive schoolers who excel in math.

The program is known as in reminiscence of Yulia Zdanovska, a gifted mathematician and laptop scientist, and a instructor with Teach for Ukraine, who was killed in March 2022 on the age of 21 throughout Russian shelling in her house metropolis of Kharkiv. Yulia’s Dream is organized via the arithmetic division on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as an offshoot of an analogous program for American college students, the Program for Research in Mathematics, Engineering and Science for High School Students, or PRIMES.

The aim is to reveal college students to the world neighborhood of analysis arithmetic by, as an example, connecting them with early-career mentors within the United States and Europe. “Mathematics is often misunderstood as a solitary endeavor,” stated Slava Gerovitch, a historian of science at M.I.T. and the director and a co-founder of PRIMES. “One cannot be a successful mathematician without being integrated into these international networks for the exchange of knowledge.”

From 260 candidates to Yulia’s Dream final yr, 48 college students have been chosen. They labored in small teams on studying research; some did nine-month group analysis initiatives and wrote papers for submission to math journals.

“Now I understand better what real mathematicians do,” stated Maryna Spektrova, 15, of Kharkiv. Ms. Spektrova, who was a spare for the Ukrainian workforce on the International Mathematical Olympiad this yr, noticed that whereas such contests entail fixing an issue in hours, analysis issues can take months or years.

Ivan Balashov, 16, from Dnipro, discovered that in the course of the conflict, alternatives just like the olympiad and Yulia’s Dream have been vital for a pupil’s sense of accomplishment and confidence. “Self-realization is one of the main concepts which makes the person freer,” he stated in an e mail. “After all, it is what we are fighting for — freedom.”

Yehor Avdieiev, 18, stated that this system helped him cope. Finishing a protracted, exhausting downside was “the best feeling in the world,” Mr. Avdieiev stated final fall from his condo in Berlin. (He famous that math had lengthy been a ardour of his; at age 4, he favored so as to add license plate numbers.)

As the conflict started, he was planning to attend V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, which suffered intensive injury from Russian missiles in March 2022. “All my plans were ruined,” he stated. He relocated on his personal to proceed his mathematical schooling; that he could be required to serve within the army was additionally an element within the choice. This yr he’s on the University of Bonn and finding out remotely at Karazin University, pursuing two arithmetic levels.

Dmytro Antonovych, 18, of Chernivtsi, is now at Minerva University in San Francisco, the place he intends to review arithmetic and knowledge science. He attended the conferences on Zoom, at the very least twice weekly, from his dorm room at Ipswich School within the U.Ok. Mr. Antonovych discovered this system significant, he stated, as a result of “it gave me a vision of how I could use my knowledge in mathematics.” And he appreciated the recommendation on how to reach mathematical analysis offered by Pavel Etingof, a mathematician at M.I.T. and the chief analysis adviser and a co-founder of PRIMES. One of the guidelines Mr. Antonovych particularly favored: “Listen to your heart. As in all important things in life, what you want and what you dream about is the most essential.”

‘An Opera House for Math’

On Wednesday afternoon in Kyiv, the convention started in a fifth-floor lecture room with a view of town. During a particular session devoted to the opening of the middle, an air-raid alert despatched the attendees, together with a number of dignitaries, into the basement bomb shelter. A City Council member in attendance organized a gathering the next day with the mayor, Vitali Klitschko, a former world boxing champion with a Ph.D. in sports activities science. Mr. Klitschko pledged his assist for the mission.

“He said that his mission is to make Kyiv so beautiful that people come back, because many people have left during the war,” stated Dr. Vlasenko, who attended the assembly together with a bunch representing the middle. She had described the middle to the mayor as “an opera house for math.”

The convention ambiance was “total excitement,” Dr. Vlasenko recalled. “One could feel it.” Every discuss prompted so many questions afterward — “we let all questions go until there were no more questions,” she stated — that daily the schedule ran two hours over. Even the problem-solving classes went late, fueled by the power of the scholars.

“It was very inspiring to see how first-year bachelor students are solving problems in advanced topics in mathematics,” stated Olha Kharchenko, 23, who’s within the second yr of a grasp’s program on the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. The convention was her first time again in Ukraine because the conflict began.

Most of Ms. Kharchenko’s household continues to be within the Russian-occupied metropolis of Kakhovka, the place a serious dam was destroyed in June. She already had hopes of returning to Ukraine for her profession; the brand new middle makes it really feel possible. Eventually, postdoctoral and long-term visiting positions would permit Ukrainian mathematicians like her to separate their time between the I.C.M.U. and different establishments.

During the convention, Ms. Kharchenko additionally started interested by returning sooner fairly than later, earlier than beginning her Ph.D. She felt an urgency “to be present in Kyiv,” she stated, “to understand what is happening there and to make my small impact to the education in Ukraine.” Maybe she would train undergraduate college students or kids — issues have been altering within the nation so quick, she stated, it was troublesome to foresee what the state of affairs can be a yr or so from now.

“It’s just my plan,” Ms. Kharchenko stated. “I don’t know what will be there.”