This is the inaugural issue of What's Happening in the Mathematical Sciences, an annual publication that surveys some of the important developments in the mathematical sciences over the past year or so. Mathematics is constantly growing and changing, reaching out to other areas of science and helping to solve some of the major problems facing society. Here you can read about how computers can't always be trusted to provide the right answer, how mathematics is contributing to solving environmental problems, and how mathematicians have solved a longstanding problem about the way a drum's shape affects its sound.

What's Happening in the Mathematical Sciences aims to inform the general public about the beauty and power of mathematics.

Readership

Researchers, educators, students, and anyone interested in an easy-to-read survey of recent developments in the mathematical sciences.

Reviews

"The topics chosen and the lively writing fill a notorious gap --to make the ideas, concepts and beauty of mathematics more visible for the general public ... well illustrated by pictures and drawings. Congratulations to Barry Cipra."

-- Zentralblatt MATH

Table of Contents

• New trends emerging in mathematical biology
• New computer insights from "transparent" proofs
• You can't hear the shape of a drum
• Environmentally sound mathematics
• Disproving the obvious in higher dimensions
• Collaboration closes in on closed geodesics
• Crystal clear computations
• Camp geometry
• Number theorists uncover a slew of prime impostors
• Map-coloring theorists look at new worlds