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Pure Math, Pure Joy

Posted by michael on from the msri-loves-company dept.

e271828 writes "The New York Times is carrying a nice little piece entitled Pure Math, Pure Joy about the beauty and applicability of pure math as carried out at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. There is an accompanying slideshow of pictures of mathematicians in action; I particularly loved the picture titled Waging Mental Battle with a Proof."

4 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Visualizing the solution... by calebb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Very cool article! I liked the statement: "Nobody knows when some abstruse bit of math will float off a blackboard at a place like this and become a..." It reminded me of the radiant primes observation

    I imagine it will be a method similar to this that helps us discover the first billion digit prime number, not some brute-force method. Speaking of prime numbers & slightly off-topic, on 5/31/2003 there was an eclipse (solar) over Norway from 4:43AM to 6:41AM. 5, 31, 2003, 443 & 641 are all prime...

  2. Is this really true? by Jonathan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But the "unreasonable effectiveness" of mathematics in explaining the world, as the physicist Eugene Wigner once put it, is a minor motivation at best for those immersed in the field. Most mathematicians say they are in it for the math itself, for the delirious quest for patterns, the thrill of the detective chase and the lure of beautiful answers.

    I sure hope this isn't really true. If mathematicans aren't really interested in helping understand the world, why should society fund them? I certainly know that a major motivation for my career in science is that understanding the world through science will help people, cure diseases, etc.

  3. One of life's simple pleasures by mofochickamo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Reading this article reminded me off all the math courses I have taken from primay school through university. I can remember feeling frustrated while dueling with especially hard problems, but the satisfaction of solving them quickly made me forget the pain.

    This article also reminded me of a good book (story wise, not much math) that a lot of you have probably read. It's called Fermat's Enigma. If you haven't read it you should. It's a really good book and an easy read. I might even make you want to read a real math book again ;)

    --
    Honk if you're horny.
  4. Coffee into theorems by ortholattice · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Blockquoth the article:
    A mathematician, the Hungarian lover of numbers Paul Erdos once said, is a device for converting coffee into theorems.

    Erdos himself was a device for converting speed into theorems. Ironically he lived to be 83 years old, prolifically creating new math until the very end.

    Like all of Erdos's friends, Graham was concerned about his drug-taking. In 1979, Graham bet Erdos $500 that he couldn't stop taking amphetamines for a month. Erdos accepted the challenge, and went cold turkey for thirty days. After Graham paid up--and wrote the $500 off as a business expense--Erdos said, "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month." He promptly resumed taking pills, and mathematics was the better for it. - Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers

    My guess is that more mathematicians use amphetamines than is commonly acknowledged. This is how some older mathematicians try to keep their "edge".

    BTW have you computed your Erdos Number?