MAT 15 - Matilde - Dansk Matematisk Forening

Centralization and regionalization: In the pre-computer
days it used to be said that a mathematician didn’t
require much by way of equipment; just a few reams of
paper, a blackboard and some penetrating ideas. Today,
although much research is still done in that mode, we find
increasingly that mathematicians require the aid of supercomputer
installations. This is still far less costly than,
say, the billions of dollars of laboratory equipment required
by high-energy physicists or astrophysicists.
Centralization of mathematics occurs as the result of a
number of factors: (1) The willingness and ability of a
society to support mathematical activity (2) The desire
and the utility of having mathematicians work in groups,
centers, etc. The notion of the critical inter-communicating
mass of creative individuals is at work here. New
systems of rapid intercommunication and transport of
graphical and printed material may in the future affect
the clumping of centers for research and development.
Politicization: While the contents of mathematics is
abstract, mathematics is created by people and is often
applied by people to people. It is to be expected, then,
that the creation and the application of mathematics
should be subject to support, pressures, monitoring and
suppression by governmental, political or even religious
institutions. The interaction between mathematics and
human institutions has a long and documented history.
Q11. Give me ten points that worry a concerned
mathematician.
A11. A concerned mathematician will worry about the
abuse, misuse, or misinterpretation of mathematics or of
its applications. But remember that even people who have
been satirized as technocrats, computocrats or mathocrats
may all be concerned people.
Rettelser til Matilde 19
Korrekturen på Matilde 19 foregik under stort tidspres, så en del trykfejl blev overset. Redaktørerne beklager.
Det var flest problemer i Claus Jensens artikel om Perspektivkasser.
En ny version af denne artikel med nogle rettelser kan ses i Matildes arkiv
http://www.matilde.mathematics.dk/arkiv/M19/claus_jensen.pdf
Eksperimentel matematikundervisning
forts. fra side 13
til produkter, der kunne omsættes i
ny indsigt.
Litteratur
[1] J. Borwein, D. Bailey. Mathematics
by Experiment: Plausible Rea-
20 20/04
Insofar as we are living in a thoroughly mathematized
civilization, the number of concerns is necessarily vast
and it is natural that most concern is focussed on “life
and death” issues. If, for example, a mathematical criterion
were developed via encephalography for determining
whether a person is “brain dead”, then this would engender
a great deal of concern.
Niels Richard Hansen, forfatteren til “Bioinformatik - en statistisk disciplin” er tilknyttet
Afdeling for Anvendt Matematik og Statistik, KU
email: richard@math.ku.dk
soning in the 21st Century,AKPeters,
2003.
[2] N.P. Fogg, Substitutions in dynamics,
arithmetics and combinatorics,
Lecture Notes in Mathematics,
vol. 1794, Springer-Verlag,
Heidelberg, 2002.
Q12. I read a statement attributed to the famous
physicist Max Born that the destructive potential of
mathematics is an immanent trend. If that is so, why
then should I, an average person, know a whole lot
more about mathematics?
A12. You should know more about it for precisely that
reason.
All creative acts have destructive potential. Though
we try to reduce the risk, an electrical outlet in the average
home is not totally risk-free. The destructive or revolutionary
potential of graphical arts, of literature is well
documented. Even as mathematics solves many problems,
it creates new problems, both internal to it and external.
To live is to be at risk, and no number of insurance
policies can reduce the psychological risk to zero. Moreover,
to live at the very edge of risk is thought by some
people to be “truly alive.”
The more the average person knows, the better off
that person is to make judgements. Some of those judgements
will be how to balance risk with prudence. In a
world in which scientific, technological and social changes
occur rapidly, a democratic society cannot long endure
in the presence of ignorance.
[3] D. Lind and B. Marcus, An introduction
to symbolic dynamics
and coding, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 1995. MR
97a:58050