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Going Beyond Fermat's Last Theorem
amjith writes "An Indian mathematician, Chandrashekhar Khare, is poised to make a significant breakthrough in the field of number theory with his solution of part of a major outstanding problem in algebraic number theory. He is currently an associate professor in Mathematics Department of University of Utah. "
It's extra information about the guy that made the breakthrough. It explains why the article that describes the achievement is The Hindu - an Indian newspaper. Obviously you are trying to make a not-so-subtle 'it's racist' comment. Would you have been quite so quick to jump on your high horse if the mathematician was of a different nationality - say American or British?
Maybe it's not, but then neither is the fact that he's an associate professor at the Mathematics Department of the University of Utah.
It's pretty common to mention where people are from when giving a news story. It's part of the human interest.
I mean, look at the "Science" page RIGHT NOW:
"First hypothesized to be possible 30 years ago by Russian physicist Victor Veselago, meta-material..."
See? Russian physicist.
Are you trying to imply there's some sort of racial overtone to the article? I don't get it.
Being Indian is totally irrelevant to the story
*sigh*
But the story isn't using "Indian" in a racist way. It's merely an addition, perhaps to shed some "interesting" light on his background outside of his area of research. Not everything that mentions somebody's ethnicity is racist.
You sound like one of those overly-PC people who make things difficult for everyone, just for the sake of trying to live up to some misplaced "holier than thou" moral code.
Person1: "See those kids playing? One of them is my niece."
Person2: "Which one?"
Person1: "The black-haired one."
Person2: "There are six of them."
Person1: "The one in the blue shirt."
Person2: "That leaves four..."
Person1: "Ummm, the one with the sandals..."
Person2: "Three..."
Person1: "...and the red ball."
Person1: "Oh, you mean the black girl? Cute kid."
Yes, it's just you.
5 06 530100.htm
The phrase you find so objectionable is *the first paragraph* of the the linked article in The Hindu, written by one " T. Jayaraman".
"MUMBAI: An Indian mathematician, Chandrashekhar Khare, is poised to make a significant breakthrough in the field of number theory: with his solution of part of a major outstanding problem in algebraic number theory."
http://www.hindu.com/2005/04/25/stories/2005042
One suspects that The Hindu wrote it that way because The Hindu takes a special interest in Indians around the world and their achievements -- does this make them racists?
Only to you.
Kill, Tux, kill!
Waiting on a math major to give a long-winded set of analogies to make this somehow releevant to the masses....
If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
I wonder, is there a second Serre's Conjecture, or do people not do research any more to see if their work has already been done? Every link I can find for Serre's Conjecture or Quillen-Suslin Theorem indicates that it has already been proved (Quillen got the Fields medal in 1978).
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Somebody mod the parent '-1 Misleading'. There are two problems commonly known as the "Serre conjecture", and the parent happens to point to the wrong one. This problem has very little to do with number theory.
It's probably best to refer to the conjecture that is on the verge of being solved as "Serre's reciprocity conjecture".
The other conjecture was solved in 1976, and ought to be called "The Quillen-Suslin Theorem", except that that also could refer to another related but different result.