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Fields Medals Awarded To 4 Mathematicians (nytimes.com)

Every four years, at an international gathering of mathematicians, the subject's youngest and brightest are honored with the Fields Medal, often described as the Nobel Prize of mathematics. The New York Times: This year's recipients, announced on Wednesday at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Rio de Janeiro, include one of the youngest ever: Peter Scholze, a professor of mathematics at the University of Bonn who is 30 years old. Two weeks ago, Peter Woit, a professor at Columbia University who blogs about mathematics and physics, was among those who anticipated that Dr. Scholze would receive the medal. Dr. Woit said Dr. Scholze was "by far the most talented arithmetic geometer of his generation." By custom, Fields medals are bestowed to mathematicians 40 years old or younger. That means Dr. Scholze would have still been eligible for another two rounds of medals. The medal, first awarded in 1936, was conceived by John Charles Fields, a Canadian mathematician. The youngest winner, Jean-Pierre Serre in 1954, was 27. The other Fields medalists this year are Caucher Birkar, 40, of the University of Cambridge in England; Alessio Figalli, 34, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich; and Akshay Venkatesh, 36, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and Stanford University in California. Peter Scholze's award cites "the revolution that he launched in arithmetic geometry," the study of shapes that arise from the rational-number solutions to polynomial equations (like xy3 + x2 = 1 or x2 â" y3z = 3). More about him here. As a mathematician, Caucher Birkar has helped bring order to the infinite variety of polynomial equations -- those equations that consist of different variables raised to various powers. No two equations are exactly alike, but Birkar has helped reveal that many can be neatly categorized into a small number of families. [As a reader pointed out, Birkar's award was stolen within minutes of him receiving it.] UPDATE (8/4/18): Organizers have announced they'll provide an identical replacement medal.

Once a classics student with no particular affinity for mathematics, Alessio Figalli has gone on to shake the venerable mathematical discipline of analysis, which concerns the properties of certain types of equations. Figalli's results have provided a refined mathematical understanding of everything from the shape of crystals to weather patterns, to the way ice melts in water. Akshay Venkatesh, a former prodigy who struggled with the genius stereotype, has won a Fields Medal for his "profound contributions to an exceptionally broad range of subjects in mathematics."

75 comments

  1. Stolen by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oddly the Fields Medal given to Birkar was stolen after the ceremony. We looked everywhere for it, but never found it. If you see anything that looks like a Field Medal on eBay please let me know.

    1. Re:Stolen by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Clearly it was a virtual medal and already annihilated against its antimedal.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:Stolen by thoriumbr · · Score: 1

      It was stolen in Brazil, so it will probably end up on MercadoLivre or OLX.

    3. Re:Stolen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Check the pawn shops in Rio?

      Also, if you're going to host in Brazil, SP has better public security. Rio is pretty dangerous...

    4. Re:Stolen by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 2

      News Link A Fields medal belonging to Caucher Birkar went missing just half an hour after he was jointly awarded the prize

      The G1 news site said Birkar had left the medal in a briefcase with his cellphone and wallet on top of a table in the pavilion where the event was being held. The event's security team later found the briefcase under a bench, but the medal was missing.
      Rio's O Globo newspaper said the thief had already been identified from security camera footage.

      --
      If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
    5. Re:Stolen by thoriumbr · · Score: 1

      Better yet, Brasília. Brazil's capital is pretty safe, is a good air hub, weather is nice (if 30C and 12% humidity is considered nice), traffic is bellow average.

  2. quantamagazine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    almost as ugly as medium.com

  3. Re:If only higher math was useful by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Informative

    If only higher math was useful.

    Over and over again, fields of mathematics that were believed to have no possible application whatsoever have turned out to be critical to our understanding of some field of science. Group theory, for example, was once believed to be pure mathematics with no possible use, but now it's central to our understanding of physics.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  4. A little math for surviving ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm a genius mathematician-like that i did study a little of "economy" for my surviving environment under NWO.

    My annual salary is $0. I'm wasting little my accumulated money from years ago.

    I can't buy luxury things, as by example, an expensive computer.

    1. Re:A little math for surviving ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your mistake was to study 'a little of "economy"'. This 'discipline' has spoiled your mind and you will never be able to achieve anything in mathematics or any other science in your life, let alone make any money. The good news is that as a mathematician you really don't need an expensive computer, paper and pencil suffice and can give you endless entertainment. Even with your salary of $0 I still envy you. Think about that!

  5. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Do you use wireless internet? Cell phones? GPS? Satellite TV or digital cable? Look into information theory and signal filtering.

  6. Losses [Re:Tesla] by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    If there's no doubt left that Tesla is a cult look at all the apologists celebrating the biggest loss in automotive history as "very good". Imagine if GM lost 700,000,000.00 in a quarter. I bet these ***SAME*** people would be calling it fraud, a scam, shut it down, etc.

    Huh? In 2007, GM posted a loss of 38.7 billion dollars.

    The following year they lost "only" 30.9 billion dollars. That is still forty times larger than the Tesla loss you are discussing.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  7. Such mathematicism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why can't non-mathematicians get a medal for once? Whaddayamean "mathematical achievement"? That just discriminates against non-mathematicians, I'm telling you!

    1. Re:Such mathematicism by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      A statistician?

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  8. No by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

    the Fields Medal, often described as the Nobel Prize of mathematics

    Actually, the Nobel Prize is the Medal in some Fields.

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    1. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, the Nobel Prize is the Medal in some Fields.

      Yes, but since there is no Nobel Prize for mathematics, this is considered as close as you're going to get.

      In the fields where you could get a Nobel, yes, that's the pinnacle. But mathematics doesn't get one of those.

    2. Re:No by arth1 · · Score: 1

      The eligibility, nomination and selection process is very different, though. A group of four people like here cannot get a Nobel Prize, for example - there's a strict limit of three.

      This has caused some problems before, like when Wilson and Penzias got the Nobel Prize in physics for detecting the cosmic background radiation, when Dicke and Peebles were the ones who told them what they had found and understood the impact, but could not be added because that would have bumped the recipients to more than three.

  9. Re:If only higher math was useful by donaggie03 · · Score: 1

    Can you give a concrete example?

    --
    Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
  10. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.springer.com/us/book/9781441969491

  11. Re:If only higher math was useful by yaznaz · · Score: 1

    Nearly every aspect of your modern life is fulfilled with help of science and technology that has some basis on concepts formulated in pure mathematics. Historically several topics in applied mathematics have started with abstract origins with little or clue on their eventual application areas during their early years.

    I would suggest starting here: https://mathoverflow.net/quest...

    If you still are unconvinced, I am sorry for your loss.

  12. Is this about my Fields Medal? by SocietyoftheFist · · Score: 1

    You can have it if you want it.

  13. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Great. We now know there's a black whole at the center of most galaxies. Now what the fuck are we ever going to do with that knowledge, and how much money did that cost us to find out.

  14. Which brings up an interesting question... by sycodon · · Score: 1

    ...does Mathematics face any unsolved quandary similar to the physics world and the hunt for the theory of everything?

    Is there some identified, but unsolved mathematic challenge that promises to change the world?

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:Which brings up an interesting question... by yaznaz · · Score: 2

      While Mathematics does not have a Grand Unified Theory equivalent, the millennium prize problems are considered most challenging mathematical problems that are still unsolved. And some of them definitely have real world implications (e.g. P vs NP problem).

    2. Re:Which brings up an interesting question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes
      Notably there are the remaining unsolved Hilbert problems as well as these remaining Millennium Prize problems:
      P versus NP
      Hodge conjecture
      Riemann hypothesis
      Yang–Mills existence and mass gap
      Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness
      Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture

    3. Re:Which brings up an interesting question... by DCFusor · · Score: 1

      Yes, feed-forward closed solutions to recursive systems (n-body gravitational, fractals, weather, most real world systems!)
      Design me an IIR filter from a frequency response to whatever accuracy I spec. That's two right off the bat.
      Solve systems of nonlinear equations (see above).
      Huge practical and obvious applications for these, no truly meaningful work - the entire world is a system where the next input is the last output - recursive, fractal - did we really have to wait for Mandelbrot to even begin to look at the shape of the problem at all?
      And all I see is bean counting and button sorting, not some decent analytical approach to solving systems like that. Else we'd have among other useful things, weather prediction, simulations of group behavior of plasmas (eg we'd have insight into how to do fusion that meant something) - it's a long, long list.

      --
      Why guess when you can know? Measure!
    4. Re:Which brings up an interesting question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Turbulent flow? Fiendishly hard, lots of unsolved bits, and extremely relevant to designing aircraft, boats etc.

  15. Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medals by OneAhead · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Caucher Birkar was an Iranian Kurd who entered the UK as a refugee. You know, exactly the kind of person the xenophobes that gave us Brexit (and are ironically also dominating EU politics) would rather not let in.

    Akshay Venkatesh was born in Delhi 2 years before his parents migrated to Australia, that other Commonwealth nation presently dominated by rabid anti-immigration policies. Gee, I wonder if he would still be let in today...

    Looks like we need to expect a surge in scientific advancements in a decade or so coming from Canada, being the largest of the countries in the Western World that still have a welcoming attitude toward immigrants.

    And don't give me "those are not the kind of immigrants we want to hold back". That falls in the same category as "I'm not a racist, why, I even have friends who are not white." To give just one counter-argument, there's no way anyone could have known that the 2-years-old Venkatesh would grow up to be a prodigy.

  16. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    What is the difference if he was a math genius and did his work in Delhi or Australia? Why would it matter so much to you what country he was currently residing in? You sound like a nationalist.

  17. Re:If only higher math was useful by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 2

    Indeed! And that doesn't count all the cryptological applications of higher math, either.

  18. Maryna Viazovska by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 0

    I'm rather disappointed that Professor Viazovska didn't take a medal this year. Her career is such that she's a prime candidate - her solutions to the sphere packing problem for S8 and S24 are remarkably simple and probably open up the question for more general Sn - and it would have been fitting after the stunning loss of Maryam Mirzakhani this last year to cancer. I hope Professor Viazovska gets the medal in 2022.

    1. Re:Maryna Viazovska by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Why would it be more fitting because of Dr Mirzakhani dying? I don't understand.

    2. Re:Maryna Viazovska by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Because: representation matters. There's only ever been one woman awarded a Fields Medal. Having a living woman Fields Medal winner would make a huge difference to other women studying mathematics.

    3. Re:Maryna Viazovska by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Oh I see. Because of the gender. I understand.

    4. Re:Maryna Viazovska by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mmmmm...identity politics.

    5. Re:Maryna Viazovska by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What a stupid anti-intellectual concept rooted in worthless, garbage emotion.

      Math doesn't give a shit if some cunt's feelings are hurt Do you understand?

      It doesn't matter if that cunt is a man or a woman. Math does not Give A Fuck.
      Math says "2+2 = 4" and "men are stronger". Facts. So go ahead and feel bad about it bitch.

    6. Re:Maryna Viazovska by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 1

      Math might not care - but humans do math, and representation matters to the humans. More humans doing deep math means more and better discoveries, sooner.

    7. Re:Maryna Viazovska by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's only ever been one woman awarded a Fields Medal.

      And Maryam Mirzakhani was that woman? I'm not trying to appear snarky here (maybe in the next section, but not here), I legitimately have no idea who any of these people are.

      Having a living woman Fields Medal winner would make a huge difference to other women studying mathematics.

      How so? I would think that those women would want their work to be praised because it is good and not because of the genitals they were born with. Choosing a recipient because they aren't male, even if that is just 1 out of 1,000,000 reasons why that person was chosen, tells others "don't worry so much about the quality of your work, we're giving you a handicap because we don't think you can do as well as men".

      Is sexism real? Yes. Is sexism bad? Also yes. Is it possible to have unintentional or subconscious sexism? Sure, but you don't fix that by deliberately being sexist in the opposite direction of how the possible sexism might lean.

    8. Re:Maryna Viazovska by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Because: representation matters. There's only ever been one woman awarded a Fields Medal.

      And is this vastly disproportional to the representation of the most accomplished mathematicians?

      Having a living woman Fields Medal winner would make a huge difference to other women studying mathematics.

      I've always found such lines of reasoning funny. Has it ever prevented women from studying mathematics when there was no Fields medal at all? Has it prevented men? Does having a living Fields medalist of my nationality help me, as opposed to all of them being foreigners? And had Mirzakhani not died, would there be less pressure to award it to Viazovska? It all sounds like a solution in search of a problem to me.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  19. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  20. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I read the book and I still don't know what you mean. Too hard to write a formula?

  21. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    shut the fuck up liar you have no idea what that book is about

  22. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Turn off all of your cell phones and computers because you aren't qualified to use electronics based upon quantum theory.

  23. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, let's turn that around - if someone is going to be a genius somewhere, wouldn't you rather that they were a genius in your country, and teaching your country's students, so they can help develop your country's economy? I think most people a greedy enough to want this. I would argue that this constitutes a form of enlightened self-interest. I would further argue that xenophobia gets in the way of this enlightened self-interest. One need only look at how Nazi anti-Jewish policies contributed to the United States developing atomic weapons as an example.

  24. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  25. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Great. We now know there's a black whole at the center of most galaxies. Now what the fuck are we ever going to do with that knowledge, and how much money did that cost us to find out.

    You should be pleased with the currently emerging neo dark age where anti-science is a winning political strategy in our post-fact era..

  26. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Study of prime numbers had no practical application for hundreds of years, at least!
    Until, public key cryptography invented in the 70s!

  27. Re:If only higher math was useful by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    The monetary benefit is we no longer have to behave as if a cosmology created by nomadic savages thousands of years ago is the truth.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  28. Re:If only higher math was useful by rhsanborn · · Score: 1

    Seeing that black hole, figuring out how they form, and how they behave increases our understanding of things like quantum mechanics. These are findings that have had applications (GPS, quantum computing, etc.) and we have every reason to believe will continue to have applications. Plus, it helps us understand other big systems like our sun, which might come in handy too.

  29. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Canada, being the largest of the countries in the Western World that still have a welcoming attitude toward immigrants.

    Of course it is. Canada is the largest country in the western world.

  30. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    No, lets not turn that around. Why not just answer my question?

  31. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 2

    To more directly answer your question: if we exclude students and other academic talent from American/Australian/UK universities - which have for decades been the best place for academics to find a home - on account of their country of origin, then those universities suffer. Eventually, those best minds go elsewhere, and in this case, it wouldn't have been Delhi, but some other place with a larger wealth of talent in a country with better immigration policies. And then those universities will attract the best talent instead - eventually to include the brightest minds from the US, Australia, UK. Afterwards, the tendency of persons not to want to move away from a good thing, will mean that those bright minds settle there and contribute to those economies and technologies.

    In short, we would see a brain drain - out of the US/UK/AU - into CAN, DE, FR. This is already starting to happen in some fields.

  32. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hits

  33. Re:If only higher math was useful by semper_statisticum · · Score: 1

    If only higher math was useful. Just seems like a giant circle jerk.

    I, very strongly, recommend consulting Abstruse Goose. Be sure to check the hover text:

    There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world.

    --
    The Spanish Inquisition of Psychometrics; Burning all the heretics.
  34. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by OneAhead · · Score: 1

    Why would it matter so much what country anyone resides in?

    To me, it shouldn't, but I'm currently in a mood of aggravating those who think otherwise. Taste of their own medicine and all that. (I was going to write "give them some food for thought", but I've recently come to suspect they're incapable of that.)

  35. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    >Why would it matter so much what country anyone resides in?

    Because some turn out to have talents and you would want them to be in a country that fosters those talents, so for example they end up solving problems in mathematics, rather than growing up to be an illiterate gourd farmer. Illiterate gourd farmers are legitimate, but gourd farming can be constraining for the budding genius.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  36. Re:If only higher math was useful by XXongo · · Score: 2

    Can you give a concrete example?

    https://www.springer.com/us/book/9781441969491

    I don't see anything in that link giving an example where "one expression [is] equivalent to 0 in one case, but the same expression in another equation is not".

    My guess is that this indicates you made an error in calculation.

  37. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just the nibbers pad're .... just the nibbers. ISIS too and gaffots, simpering snowflake-sluts like you.

  38. Re:If only higher math was useful by Jzanu · · Score: 1

    If you are claiming to have read a 667 page textbook on functional calculus within ~3 hours, but failed to notice that the title is "Concrete" Functional Calculus when replying to a post asking for a "Concrete" Calculus example, well - you missed something more significant than a zero.

  39. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    You didn't answer my question: why is it important what country they settle in? Is it more important for them to contribute to Australias economy, or the US economy or India's economy? That is very Nationalist of you.

  40. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    Ah, I see. So you are saying there is some flawed about their country of origin, and they need to be welcomed to "a country that fosters those talents" instead. NOW I get what you guys are saying. So throwing open the borders is the solution here? Or would it make every country flawed like the countries they came from? It sounds like you think some countries are better than others in "fostering talents". I wonder why that is.

  41. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    Totally. Throw open the borders. If freedom of trade in goods is good for economies and personal wealth, why is freedom of trade in labour not? Europe opened its borders internally and all the moaning ninnies said the sky would fall in and waves of immigrants would ruin the place. All it did was improve the economy, make people's lives easier and freer and make it possible for more diverse and better restaurants to exist.

     

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  42. Re:If only higher math was useful by XXongo · · Score: 1

    If you are claiming to have read a 667 page textbook on functional calculus within ~3 hours

    No.

    I'm claiming to have read the link that was given, which was one paragraph long.

  43. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by swillden · · Score: 1

    You didn't answer my question: why is it important what country they settle in? Is it more important for them to contribute to Australias economy, or the US economy or India's economy? That is very Nationalist of you.

    From the perspective of humanity as a whole, it matters only that the brightest people get the resources they need to realize their full potential.

    From the perspective of any one nation, smart people want all of the big brains to live and work in their country, which means they want a fairly open immigration policy. This is an approach that worked fantastically well for the US in the 20th century. Idiots prefer to harass foreign visitors and build walls, ensuring that the smart people from every other country stay away.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  44. Specious argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Personally I have zero problem with individual people wanting to move to a country of their choice and build an earning and a life for themselves. In fact I moved to another country for a job and lived there for a while, improved my grasp of the language, and so on, and moved back for another job. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

    But I do have a problem with 1) people claiming to be asylum seekers, which entitles them to all sorts of benefits and even gets them preferred treatment over the locals, only to never get off the dole, never actually learn the language, and so on and so forth, and 2) lots and lots and lots and lots of them. I also have a problem with people bringing their headscarf-mandating ideology and expecting the locals to bow and scrape to them. Which they do, without fail, once there's enough of them in the country. Oh, and the rampant crime and getting away with it is getting old too. It's very clear that among those masses we're importing, there are a large number of profiteur deadbeats, and their misdeeds are being shuffled under the carpet wholesale.

    But all of that can really only do damage to the country I'm in (which is NOT the USA, TYVM) because of completely weak leadership at both national and EU levels. I have a bigger problem with those sick fucks still. And then there's the "progressives" in and outside government that will go "THAT'S RACIST" at any sort of critique at all. "Look guys, this way just isn't working" 'YOU ARE A XENOPHOBE RACIST ISLAMOPHOBE HATER YOU XENOPHOBE RACIST ISLAMOPHOBE HATER YOU!!!!one!elebenty!1!' -- and so on. I have problems with our weak leadership and the idiot SJW intelligentsia too.

    But like I said, someone coming here from wherever they came and obviously pulling their own weight and obviously doing their level best to fit in, hey, that's cool.

  45. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You are confusing immigration with invasion. If someone wants to be apart of another country, adopt that counties attitudes, values, and ideals and language, that should be encouraged. When Werner von braun came to the USA and helped build the Saturn V, he was not waving the NAZI flag and loudly calling for the extermination of USAian sovreighnty. When the most important Jewish refugees came to the USA and made up the backbone of the Manhatten project, they were not shitting on the USA the whole time.

    This new generation of so called immigrants is not coming to be apart of the USA, they are coming to conquer if. We have "immigrants" who wave the Mexican flag, speak Spanish, and call for the elimination of USAian control over its borders. That is not immigration. I feel a similar thing is happening in Europe. Are the poor disadvantaged immigrants happy and proud to be apart of their new country? Or are they demanding that their new country addopt Islam, and speak a different language, and accept the way they dress.

    Dont be so kind, trusting, and generous that people take advabtage of you generosity and abuse you. This is essentially what is happening with the immigration debate.

  46. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Human nature is such that it builds walls. Would you throw open your doors to your house? Animals and people are territorial. It is an evolutionary adaptation to ensure the survival of the tribe or pack.
    Calling for open borders is working against millions of years of evolution. Enlightened liberal societies with lax immigration policies become subsumed by tribes with less enlightened attitudes.

    The civilized virtues are useless unless a society is also in touch with the barbarian virtues

  47. Re:If only higher math was useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mention cell phones: look at the maths behind quantum mechanics!
    Mention gps: that needs general relativity, which relies on differential geometry.
    EM: maxwell originally wrote it out in terms of quaternions (hypercomplex numbers).
    Go read a machibe learning (face reccognition, biometrics etc) paper without a working understanding of some pretty hardcore maths.

    Etc etc

  48. Don't post such articles... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... if /. is not able to render mathematical symbols like in the summary.

  49. Re:Dirty immigrants with their filthy Fields medal by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    Why do you hate freedom? Are you a North Korean dictator?

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.