Fields Medals awarded

prostoalex writes "Every four years the Fields Medals are awarded to top mathematicians for outstanding research. This year's winners, as this San Francisco Chronicle article reports are Vladimir Voevodsky from Institute for Advanced Study and Laurent Lafforgue from Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques. 'True to form, Lafforgue and Voevodsky's mathematical research has no known practical applications', notes SF Chronicle."

Comments

Not even just 'eventually'

[DoctorNathaniel]

Pure research doesn't only pay off 'eventually'.. it pays off right now.

First off, these fields aren't as dead as the SF article suggests: topology is a very big game right now with high-level particle theory. I don't pretend to understand it, but building 'topological field theories' is something people spend a good chunk of time trying to do. Although this research probably isn't directly applicable, it's neccessary to push a field generally before you get to something specifically good.

(Of course, many would believe that theoretical particle physics has no application, either, and they wouldn't be entirely wrong.)

Another point to make, though, and I can't stress this enough, is that pure research is valuable even if it leads to NO application, for several reasons:
- It creates spin-off technologies. (In the case of mathematics, the 'technology' might be pretty abstract but still useful.)

- It creates a vibrant research community, which is good for a vibrant teaching environment. (Debatable, but at least some people think so.)

- It expands our knowledge of the universe /reality / human experience / art / imagination / etc.

My favorite example: Even though Copernicus didn't really do anything for us but give us a few interplanetary probes, a useless moonshot of two, and slightly improved timetables, most people would be happy to know that the earth goes around the sun, not vice versa, not because it's USEFUL, but because it's TRUE.

---Nathaniel,
Shooting his mouth off about his favorite topic.