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07 September 2018 Photo Stephen Collett
Mathematician makes popular contribution to science Prof Atangana
Prof Atangana is the first African under 40 years of age to be selected as African Academic of Science affiliated in Mathematics. He recently delivered his inaugural lecture and is pictured with Eelco Lukas, Director of the Institute for GroundwaterStudies at the UFS (middle) and Prof Hendri Kroukamp, Acting Vice-Rector: Academic
Prof Abdon Atangana, researcher in the Institute for Groundwater Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS), recently delivered his inaugural lecture on the topic: Understanding God’s Nature with Non-Local Operators.

His research interests are methods and applications of partial and ordinary differential equations, fractional differential equations, perturbation methods, asymptotic methods, iterative methods, and groundwater modelling. Prof Atangana is the founder of the fractional calculus with non-local and non-singular kernels popular in applied mathematics today. He has introduced more than 12 mathematical operators, most of which bear his name (such as the Atangana-Baleanu fractional integral).

He stated: “We will not stop until we change the classical view of doing mathematics. Mathematics is not a subject but a tool given to mankind by God to understand nature. One single mathematical operator cannot portray God’s nature accurately. Therefore the Atangana Baleanu was suggested.”

New weapons

Most physical problems can be expressed in terms of mathematical formulations called differential equations. According to him the differential equation’s aim is to analyse, understand, and predict the future of a physical problem. Prof Atangana introduced the Atangana-Baleanu fractional integral. This brought new weapons into applied mathematics to model complex real-world problems more accurately.

Prof Atangana explained: “The Atangana-Baleanu fractional derivative is able to describe real-world problems with different scales, or problems that change their properties during time and space for instance, the spread of cancer, the flow of water within heterogeneous aquifers, movement of pollution within fractured aquifers, and many others. This crossover behaviour is observed in many empirical systems.”

Sudden change

The Atangana-Baleanu fractional derivative is also able to describe physical or biological phenomena, such as a heart attack, the physiological progression from life to death, structural failure in an aeroplane, and many other physical occurrences with sudden change with no steady state.

The new differential and integral operators are nowadays in fashion and are being applied with great success in many fields to model complex natural phenomena. It is believed that the future of modelling complex real-world problems relies on these non-local operators.

News Archive

International organised crime expert speaks at our university
2011-07-25

 
Prof. Johann Henning, Dean of our Faculty of Law and Prof. Barry Rider.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

Prof. Barry Rider, respected amongst others for the vital role he is playing in the struggle to combat money laundering and organised and economic crime delivered a lecture, Stewardship in Islamic Financial Law, at our university as part of the Faculty of Law’s Prestige Series of seminars.

He has taught mainly at Cambridge and London Universities and has delivered a valuable contribution as an academic in various fields of law. He has read papers and taught at more than 300 universities and conferences in more than 63 countries. He has also authored more than 35 legal handbooks and has made a substantial contribution to several more specialist publications. He is editor of, amongst others, The Company Lawyer, the International and Comparative Corporate Law Journal and the Journal of Financial Crime. His main areas of research are in financial law and the control of economic crime.
 
Prof. Rider has a relationship of more than twenty years with our university. In this time, he received the Doctor Legum (honoris causa) for his involvement with the drafting of money laundering and insider trading legislation. The university has also appointed him as Professor Honorarius in the Faculty of Law (only the second in its more than hundred-year history) for his vast and pivotal role in international law reform as an academic law reformer.
 
As part of his appointment as Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Law, Prof. Rider often delivers lectures in the faculty. During his recent visit, Prof. Rider’s lecture on Islamic Financial Law shed light on the importance of this topic in today’s economy, as money generated from Islamic businesses make up $750 billion to $trillion of the world’s economy. After 9/11, the West wanted to understand more about Islamic Financial Law.
 
The Islamic Financial Law system is determined by the Koran. For instance, Muslim business people cannot allow any payment of interest, as it is forbidden by the Koran.
 
Prof. Rider’s lecture on this very relevant topic was very insightful. As consultant to the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) he spoke with authority on the topic. He is the only British academic lawyer assisting this body.
 
Prof. Rider currently serves in an advisory capacity at the international law firm Bryan Cave LLP. Apart from the IFSB, he is also consultant to the Asian Development Bank.

 

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