8th European Congress of Mathematics
The 8th European Congress of Mathematics (8ECM) will take place between 20 and 26 June 2021. The organisers of the Congress and the European Mathematical Society, under whose aegis the event is held, have unanimously decided that all lectures and talks that were scheduled to take place in Portorož will be moved online.
The local organiser of 8ECM is the University of Primorska in conjunction with other higher education institutions, research organisations and societies in Slovenia. The Congress, which takes place every four years, is being hosted by Slovenia for the first time. This is a remarkable success for Slovene mathematics, since Slovenia has never before hosted such an important event in this field. The Congress is supported by Slovenia’s president Borut Pahor who has graciously agreed to act as patron.
The Congress will include a number of lectures by world famous mathematicians, round-table discussions, workshops, exhibitions and meetings of mathematical societies. The organisers have devoted particular attention to accompanying activities and to the popularisation of mathematics in Slovenia. Among other things, 8ECM will include a maths-themed postage stamp exhibition prepared by the British philatelist and mathematician Professor Robin Wilson.
The basic design of the special 8ECM stamp represents the famous Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, . . . In this sequence, discovered in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century by the mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers in the sequence. The ratio between each number and its predecessor gradually approaches the golden ratio, while the numbers in the sequence are arranged in a logarithmic or Fibonacci spiral.
The golden ratio may be described with the words: “The ratio of greater to smaller is the same as the ratio of the sum of both to the greater.”
Slovenia issued a 1.94 Euro stamp on 28th May 2021.
Stamp Digest 