In the recent December issue of Mathematics Today we were treated (on page 268) to a joke from the Institute of Physics (on the celebration of their 40,000th member). The answer to the question: 'What is a mathematician's favourite operator?' being given as 'division' was then responded to tongue in cheek by the IMA and some twenty other bodies as: We are not amused! There is a serious side to this proliferation of mathematical bodies problem. Although the CMS seeks to speak for some of them perhaps the time has come to formally construct an umbrella organisation with links to each of those listed, and those others that were not, that would have the necessary gravitas and contacts to speak and act in the general mathematical interests of us all and of society as well. There would then be no need for mergers or turf wars between each grouping since all could feel at home under the one roof and belong, perhaps with offered reciprocal membership, to those others happy to take them. We could call it the Royal Institute of Mathematical Sciences (RIoMS) and list the incorporated bodies appropriately just as in the joke but of course it would then be a suitably serious one. So perhaps now is the time for the IMA to get the ball rolling and demonstrate to those physicists that we too can form a unified field.
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