How Math Got Its ‘Nobel’
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Jorge Petrucio Viana
Aug 11, 2014, 4:01:23 PM8/11/14
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The New York Times
How Math Got Its ‘Nobel’
AUG. 8, 2014
By MICHAEL J. BARANY
ON Wednesday in Seoul, the International Congress of Mathematicians will
announce the winners of the Fields Medal. First awarded in Oslo in 1936, the
medal is given every four years to two to four mathematicians. It is
considered the “Nobel Prize” of mathematics (even the organizers of the
congress call it that), filling a gap left by Alfred Nobel, who did not
include mathematics among the prizes endowed on his death in 1896.
Many mathematicians will tell you that Nobel omitted mathematics from his
prizes to spite the Swedish mathematician Gosta Mittag-Leffler, a rival, and
that the Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields created the award that
bears his name to correct the omission. But this is a myth that needs
debunking. First of all, there is no good evidence of a feud between Nobel and
Mittag-Leffler. Nobel omitted mathematics simply because it was not as
important to him as other endeavors were.
As for Fields, he proposed his award not as a substitute for the Nobel Prize
but as a symbol of international unity. In the aftermath of World War I, the
scientific community was fractured by national rivalries. When the
International Mathematical Union was first founded, in 1920, it explicitly
banned representatives of the former Central Powers. Fields so wanted “to
avoid invidious comparisons” among candidates for his award that he suggested
it be presented “with a view to encouraging further achievement” rather than
just honoring past accomplishments. (This remark would later be used to
justify the award’s age limit of 40, though Fields never intended the medal
just for the young.)
For decades the Fields Medal was relatively obscure. In 1950, neither of the
two recipients had heard of the award before being told that he had won it. So
how did it become the Nobel Prize of mathematics? The true story helps
illuminate the often neglected intersection of mathematics and politics.
On Aug. 5, 1966, The San Francisco Examiner reported that Stephen Smale, a
mathematician at the University of California, Berkeley, who had been
subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee in
connection with his anti-Vietnam War activism, had fled to Moscow. But Mr.
Smale hadn’t fled. The subpoena hadn’t even reached him, for he was already in
Europe. As Mr. Smale’s colleagues hurried to clarify to the press, he was on
his way to attend the International Congress of Mathematicians, in Moscow,
where he was to receive the Fields Medal on the day he was meant to testify.
Some saw Mr. Smale’s award as evidence of Communist affinities. “U.S. Math
Teacher Wins Soviet Award” announced The Gettysburg Times. But The San
Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times saw things differently. They
credited Mr. Smale’s colleagues’ account, quoted in The Associated Press, that
he was abroad to accept “mathematics’ closest award to the Nobel Prize” — an
exaggeration that, by enhancing Mr. Smale’s stature, helped insulate him from
criticism. The scandal faded.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
The following year, Mr. Smale returned to the headlines. It appeared that his
funding from the National Science Foundation had been blocked by parties
unhappy with his antiwar activism. But once again, the claim that Mr. Smale
held the equivalent of a Nobel Prize helped to protect his cause, and he
retained his funding. The close association between the Fields Medal and the
Nobel Prize, an artifact of Cold War politics, would persist to this day.
Because mathematics seems remote from “real world” concerns, people tend to
overlook how intertwined mathematics and politics can be. In Mr. Smale’s case,
his mathematical work was not directly tied to his political activities
(though his renown as a mathematician created opportunities for his political
engagement). But mathematics itself can be political, too. After World War II,
the United States military funded elite mathematical research in areas ranging
from topology and differential equations to operations research and game theory.
Mathematicians have been some of the military-industrial complex’s biggest
beneficiaries, but also some of its fiercest critics. Today, in the wake of
the controversy about the National Security Agency’s surveillance,
mathematicians are debating how they should relate to the agency, one of their
largest employers and a longtime funder of their work. The Stanford
mathematician Keith Devlin expressed the frustration of many of his peers when
he said recently that mathematicians “should refuse to work for the N.S.A.
until they both follow the U.S. Constitution and demonstrate responsible use
of mathematical tools.”
Mr. Smale is not a mathematician who merely happened to oppose the Vietnam
War, just as others are not mathematicians who merely happen to work for (or
oppose) the N.S.A. Mathematics is a critical part of who they are and what
they do, for better and sometimes for worse.
To say mathematics is political is not to diminish it, but rather to recognize
its greater meaning, promise and responsibilities.
Michael J. Barany is a graduate student in the history of science at Princeton.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/how-math-got-its-nobel-.html?
hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-
region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=1
How Math Got Its ‘Nobel’
AUG. 8, 2014
By MICHAEL J. BARANY
ON Wednesday in Seoul, the International Congress of Mathematicians will
announce the winners of the Fields Medal. First awarded in Oslo in 1936, the
medal is given every four years to two to four mathematicians. It is
considered the “Nobel Prize” of mathematics (even the organizers of the
congress call it that), filling a gap left by Alfred Nobel, who did not
include mathematics among the prizes endowed on his death in 1896.
Many mathematicians will tell you that Nobel omitted mathematics from his
prizes to spite the Swedish mathematician Gosta Mittag-Leffler, a rival, and
that the Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields created the award that
bears his name to correct the omission. But this is a myth that needs
debunking. First of all, there is no good evidence of a feud between Nobel and
Mittag-Leffler. Nobel omitted mathematics simply because it was not as
important to him as other endeavors were.
As for Fields, he proposed his award not as a substitute for the Nobel Prize
but as a symbol of international unity. In the aftermath of World War I, the
scientific community was fractured by national rivalries. When the
International Mathematical Union was first founded, in 1920, it explicitly
banned representatives of the former Central Powers. Fields so wanted “to
avoid invidious comparisons” among candidates for his award that he suggested
it be presented “with a view to encouraging further achievement” rather than
just honoring past accomplishments. (This remark would later be used to
justify the award’s age limit of 40, though Fields never intended the medal
just for the young.)
For decades the Fields Medal was relatively obscure. In 1950, neither of the
two recipients had heard of the award before being told that he had won it. So
how did it become the Nobel Prize of mathematics? The true story helps
illuminate the often neglected intersection of mathematics and politics.
On Aug. 5, 1966, The San Francisco Examiner reported that Stephen Smale, a
mathematician at the University of California, Berkeley, who had been
subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee in
connection with his anti-Vietnam War activism, had fled to Moscow. But Mr.
Smale hadn’t fled. The subpoena hadn’t even reached him, for he was already in
Europe. As Mr. Smale’s colleagues hurried to clarify to the press, he was on
his way to attend the International Congress of Mathematicians, in Moscow,
where he was to receive the Fields Medal on the day he was meant to testify.
Some saw Mr. Smale’s award as evidence of Communist affinities. “U.S. Math
Teacher Wins Soviet Award” announced The Gettysburg Times. But The San
Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times saw things differently. They
credited Mr. Smale’s colleagues’ account, quoted in The Associated Press, that
he was abroad to accept “mathematics’ closest award to the Nobel Prize” — an
exaggeration that, by enhancing Mr. Smale’s stature, helped insulate him from
criticism. The scandal faded.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
The following year, Mr. Smale returned to the headlines. It appeared that his
funding from the National Science Foundation had been blocked by parties
unhappy with his antiwar activism. But once again, the claim that Mr. Smale
held the equivalent of a Nobel Prize helped to protect his cause, and he
retained his funding. The close association between the Fields Medal and the
Nobel Prize, an artifact of Cold War politics, would persist to this day.
Because mathematics seems remote from “real world” concerns, people tend to
overlook how intertwined mathematics and politics can be. In Mr. Smale’s case,
his mathematical work was not directly tied to his political activities
(though his renown as a mathematician created opportunities for his political
engagement). But mathematics itself can be political, too. After World War II,
the United States military funded elite mathematical research in areas ranging
from topology and differential equations to operations research and game theory.
Mathematicians have been some of the military-industrial complex’s biggest
beneficiaries, but also some of its fiercest critics. Today, in the wake of
the controversy about the National Security Agency’s surveillance,
mathematicians are debating how they should relate to the agency, one of their
largest employers and a longtime funder of their work. The Stanford
mathematician Keith Devlin expressed the frustration of many of his peers when
he said recently that mathematicians “should refuse to work for the N.S.A.
until they both follow the U.S. Constitution and demonstrate responsible use
of mathematical tools.”
Mr. Smale is not a mathematician who merely happened to oppose the Vietnam
War, just as others are not mathematicians who merely happen to work for (or
oppose) the N.S.A. Mathematics is a critical part of who they are and what
they do, for better and sometimes for worse.
To say mathematics is political is not to diminish it, but rather to recognize
its greater meaning, promise and responsibilities.
Michael J. Barany is a graduate student in the history of science at Princeton.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/how-math-got-its-nobel-.html?
hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-
region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=1
Walter Alexandre Carnielli
Aug 11, 2014, 4:11:41 PM8/11/14
to logi...@dimap.ufrn.br
Car@s,
Apostas sobre se havera um brasileiro na Field's Medal a ser anunciada depois de amanha?
W.
Francisco Antonio Doria
Aug 11, 2014, 4:23:43 PM8/11/14
to logi...@dimap.ufrn.br
Aguardem a Fields amanhã. Vai ser interessante.
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fad
ahhata alati, awienta Wilushati
Joao Marcos
Aug 11, 2014, 6:58:07 PM8/11/14
to Lista acadêmica brasileira dos profissionais e estudantes da área de LOGICA
On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 5:23 PM, Francisco Antonio Doria
<fama...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Aguardem a Fields amanhã. Vai ser interessante.
Tim Gowers está a caminho, blogando suas impressões:
<fama...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Aguardem a Fields amanhã. Vai ser interessante.
http://gowers.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/icm2014-introductory-post/
Aqui o relato vibrante que ele fez em 2010:
http://gowers.wordpress.com/category/icm2010/
* * *
Listo os invited speakers da área de Logic and Foundations
(Model theory. Set theory. Recursion theory. Proof theory. Applications.
Connections with: Algebra, Number Theory, Combinatorics,
Mathematical Aspects of Computer Science)
François Loeser, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, France
Definability in non-archimedean geometry
Ilijas Farah, York University, Canada
Logic and operator algebras
Zoé Chatzidakis, Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7, France
Model theory of difference fields and applications to algebraic dynamics
Byunghan Kim, Yonsei University, Korea
Amalgamation functors and homology groups in model theory
Antonio Montalbán, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Computability theoretic classifications for classes of structures
Slawomir Solecki, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
A general approach to finite Ramsey theory
* * *
Quanto a apostas, sem bananas ou abacaxis:
http://poll.pollcode.com/p6es9_result?v
* * *
JM
--
http://sequiturquodlibet.googlepages.com/
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