Not At All Discrete

By Michael Samec - It's not in the name: with their excellence initiative in discrete mathematics, TU Graz, the Uni Graz and the University of Leoben are causing people to notice - because they're not discrete at all. "Everyone you ask will have a different idea of the boundary," says Wolfgang Woess, on being asked what discrete mathematics is all about. Somehow it is actually discrete because it can't be exactly demarcated - which is surprising in a field which is the epitome of exactness: mathematics. And Woess should know since he holds two professorships at the eponymous institute of TU Graz. As professor, he is also the head of the Discrete Mathematics doctoral programme , which was initiated by TU Graz together with the University of Graz and the University of Leoben. Discretus. The term for this research area is derived from the Latin "discretus" - the perfect participle of "discernere".