Marlene Dumas: Myths & Mortals

Marlene Zuk

Last month, the cabinet of the UAE government banned the import of palm trees from any country where red palm weevil had been identified. “This is a great danger for the date palm industry,” said Abdul Wahab Zaid, the director of the date palm research and development unit in the UAE. “Ideally, movement of planting material from infested plantations within the country and also from one country ...

Rationality for Mortals

Modelling for Mere Mortals

In the past, attempts to convince practising software engineers to adopt formal methods of software development were generally unsuccessful. The methods were too difficult to learn and use, provided inadequate tool support and did not integrate well into the software development process. In short, they could only be used effectively by the gods who created them! Are we in a better position toda...

The Jean Dumas Method

Jean Dumas (Fig. 1) published his combustion method in Paris back in 1848. This makes the method considerably older than Kjeldahl digestion. While researching the composition of natural oils, Dumas tried combusting his samples, initially to analyse the carbon and hydrogen contained therein. Combustion therefore makes it possible to analyse multiple parameters, while Kjeldahl digestion is only s...

Proof identity for mere mortals

The proof identity problem asks: When are two proofs the same? The question naturally occurs when one reflects on mathematical practice. The problem understandably can be seen as a challenge for mathematical logic, and indeed various perspectives on the problem can be found in the proof theory literature. From the proof theory perspective, the challenge is met by laying down new calculi that el...