Maths professor breaks new ground
Atangana's name among top academics in the world
Professor Abdon Atangana is delighted that his name has been added to the list of highly cited mathematicians around the world.
Atangana has described his acclaim as “a first step in the decolonisation of science and an indication that Africans can contribute and influence the world of mathematics”.
Atangana, a professor from the University of the Free State (UFS), together with a colleague, professor Dumitru Baleanu from Cankaya University in Ankara, Turkey, developed a mathematical operator that could be used to show case real world problems arising in many fields of science, mathematics, technology and engineering.
Atangana provided new fractional differential operators called AtanganaBaleanu fractional derivatives.
“The Atangana-Baleanu fractional derivatives brought new weapons into applied mathematics to model complex realworld problems more accurately.
“These operators have their applications to nearly all fields of science, technology and engineering. In physics the derivative of a displacement of a moving body with respect to time is the speed and the derivative of a speed with respect to time is acceleration. In other fields differential operators are used to model the spread of the virus and in the groundwater they are used to portray the movement of subsurface water within geological formation. So in general, differential and integral operators are used to showcase real-world problems that arise in all fields,” Atangana said.
Explaining this concept, Atangana said the fractional derivative is 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 of sudden change, with no steady state.
The two professors developed their differential operators in 2016 when existing operators failed to accurately show some physical problems.
“I am excited to see that an African mathematician is attached to operators used in may fields of science, technology and engineering. I am also the first editor of more than 20 top-tier journals of applied mathematics. For me this is a first step in the decolonisation of science, an indication that Africans can contribute and influence the world of mathematics,”
Atangana said.
The Atangana-Baleaunu operators has been cited in 351 published and peer reviewed research papers since the first paper was published in 2016.
“This is a very big joy, as one day an
African child will say ‘I am proud to be African’, as these theories were developed by a black African youngster. A big joy to see that, for the first time ever, a black mathematician is added in the list of highly cited mathematicians,” Atangana said.