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there are a lot of very interesting math things with cool names. heres the problem. mathematicians dont build expensive shit. theres no math lhc that cost the

by wayn3 9y ago

there are a lot of very interesting math things with cool names. heres the problem. mathematicians dont build expensive shit. theres no math lhc that cost the equivalent of feeding bangladesh for a century that econ minded folks could whine about. theres no "mathematicians will create a black hole under geneva that will swallow us all". if the riemann conjecture is proven, precisely nothing happens. its not even possible that something happens in the tangible world, because of some result in mathematics. mathematics isnt irrelevant because it doesnt have cool names. its irrelevant because its impossible to make the news. a biologist can accidentally create a virus that kills us all. obviously science fiction, but its at least potentially possible. a chemist can invent some kind of explosive that isis could steal and make some building go boom. physicists can totally make black holes appear and build warp drives and all this weird stuff that is more fiction than science, but spock talked about it and light sabers duh. mathematics just powers all those things. there are no lasers without math, either, but they arent attributed to mathematics. they are physics stuff. when the first fusion reactor finally runs profitably, mathematics will have contributed a lot of necessities. but its the billionaire douche who funded the thing who gets to talk about how the engineers built an impressive machine. mathematics doesnt get any kind of fame outside the scientific world, because its invisible. but the scientists who use all the math stuff know that without mathematics, they'd be almost useless.

ggambetta 9y ago
Interesting point. I guess encryption (and indirectly, blockchains) are some of the few closer to "pure" applications of math. But even then, they're treated as black boxes to some extent - not sure math gets all the credit it deserves there, for the average user.
- wayn3 9y ago
  muricans dont even admit that "computer science" is a sub-field of mathematics. but thats ok. mathematics is way too powerful to care about mainstream fame.
badosu 9y ago
> if the riemann conjecture is proven, precisely nothing happens. its not even possible that something happens in the tangible world, because of some result in mathematics. Unless I'm mistaken, if proved the Riemann Conjecture could provide insights on the distribution of prime numbers or a polynomial-time algorithm for prime factorization, which would enable attacks on ciphers that rely on the difficulty of this problem (e.g. RSA). This is not assured by the yes/no answer of the conjecture, but the underlying work to reach that.
- wayn3 9y ago
  im not saying that proving the riemann conjecture doesnt do anything for mathematics. it does a whole lot. but the world itself isnt going to change. i mean the 5 pm news world. heres the thing. we already kind of assume the riemann conjecture to be true. you can do a lot of things with it. its not PROVEN, and mathematicians will tell you that its not proven, but if it was such a big massive RSA attacks deal, hackers would just "assume" its proven and then calculate those primes. they would very quickly figure out whether the conjecture holds or not, in a practical sense. i think what you misunderstand is that the riemann conjecture already exists. you can already use the result of the conjecture. the missing link is the proof. but you dont need the proof to apply the result. you can just apply it. maybe some mathematician comes along and disproves it. but the result is very accessible. so the result cant be what would enable you to perform polynomial time attacks. it must be the proof. but since you dont know what the proof would look like (because it doesnt exist), it cant be in the proof. therefore, i kinda doubt what youre saying. a conjecture is just a statement by a smart person that lacks the proof. from a mathematical point of view, its not a result. but for everyone else, including serious physicists, conjectures can be used as is to make progress. if the riemann conjecture allowed for primes to be calculated so fast that modern cryptography would suffer, then that would already be happening. but thats just a tangent. my initial point was that the riemann conjecture isnt going to say anything about the world that a journalist will find interesting enough to construct something reportable out of.
  - drdeca 9y ago
    I think they meant that finding a proof could involve discoveries leading up to that proof which could lead to <blah>, not that, once we have a proof, we know it, and then we can deriving things using it as an assumption and be more confident in our conclusions, which could lead to <blah>.
VLM 9y ago
If you're bored and hanging out with physicists and/or mathematicians or maybe some engineers, perhaps over some beers you can have a fun conversation along these lines: Here's something uncontroversial: if its in physics, then its in math. Here's a weird proposal: if its in math, then its in physics at a greater than trivial level or it can easily be proven not to be in physics. Or if its in math, either its obviously not in physics or it is in physics even if we don't know yet. Discussion: Aside from souls and such your brain used physics to come up with some math thats not in physics so at a very trivial level that non-physics math was simulated in your physics brain, so it is now in physics because a physics simulation of the particles of your brain, however impractical to actually simulation ... naw thats trivial cheat that would include everything. And speaking of easily be proven, a classic example is we know two dimensional geometry fairly well and it doesn't apply to the greater world although it makes an entertaining plot for a book named "Flatland". So as your buddies gulp down some beers, challenge them to think up a math that is not in physics as kind of a parlor game. It can be fun, especially if you allow extremely extended analogies and have a very relaxed beer fueled attitude toward handwaving arguments. Some topics like string theory or the multiverse will have to be banned to prevent pointless fighting. Anyway the relevance to OP and the comment is that in a drunken handwaving sense math that hasn't been found in physics is possibly a failure of the imagination of the physicist, so Riemann seems useless today is an attack on physicists not an attack on mathematicians. You can just picture some seance between Newton and Maxwell, Yo Mr Physicist I invented all the math you needed centuries before you got around to noticing electromagnetism, like whats your excuse for the delay?
ianai 9y ago
I tell people, sometimes, that studying mathematics felt like studying god's (goddess') thoughts. Physics and the like describe this universe - and somehow mathematics reaches something different. If anything, I wish we had something akin to a mathematics monastery. I'm not talking about academia - that avenue clearly leads to financial enslavement at this point. I'm talking about a place with lots of chalk boards and pretty basic room/board. What would it contribute to society? How about...people with increased thinking skills and a place to belong? It could also taken on consulting work from everywhere. It may end up looking like a liberal arts college or the math wing of the NSA - sans secrecy. I'd also want the barriers to entry to be low.
- indigochill 9y ago
  If you haven't read "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson, you'd probably enjoy it. It's a science fiction story about basically math monks (there's also a heavy dose of philosophy, though it's pretty much all connected to math in some way).
  - alanfalcon 9y ago
    I second this suggestion. Plow through until it clicks and be prepared to give it a second read-through for an all-new experience. That is if you're slow to catch on, as I was.
    - ianai 9y ago
      I bought it. The concept sounds like an interesting thought.
- otoburb 9y ago
  >>I wish we had something akin to a mathematics monastery. I'm not talking about academia - that avenue clearly leads to financial enslavement at this point. I'm talking about a place with lots of chalk boards and pretty basic room/board. As soon as you wrote that, Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study[1][2] sprang to mind. In 2012-2013 a bunch of mathematics professors got together to organize a research program, from which homotopy type theory[3] (HoTT) was born and a book[4] written to explain their monastic achievement! [1] https://www.ias.edu/ https://www.ias.edu/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Advanced_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Advanced_Study [3] https://www.ias.edu/idea-tags/homotopy-type-theory https://www.ias.edu/idea-tags/homotopy-type-theory [4] https://homotopytypetheory.org/book/ https://homotopytypetheory.org/book/
eastWestMath 9y ago
If I remember correctly, if the Riemann conjecture is proven the geometric complexity theorists have a path to resolve P=NP.
GuB-42 9y ago
Cryptography may be the exception. It is the closest we have to pure maths with direct, real-life consequences.

by wayn3 9y ago

ggambetta 9y ago

Interesting point. I guess encryption (and indirectly, blockchains) are some of the few closer to "pure" applications of math. But even then, they're treated as black boxes to some extent - not sure math gets all the credit it deserves there, for the average user.

wayn3 9y ago
muricans dont even admit that "computer science" is a sub-field of mathematics. but thats ok. mathematics is way too powerful to care about mainstream fame.

badosu 9y ago

> if the riemann conjecture is proven, precisely nothing happens. its not even possible that something happens in the tangible world, because of some result in mathematics. Unless I'm mistaken, if proved the Riemann Conjecture could provide insights on the distribution of prime numbers or a polynomial-time algorithm for prime factorization, which would enable attacks on ciphers that rely on the difficulty of this problem (e.g. RSA). This is not assured by the yes/no answer of the conjecture, but the underlying work to reach that.

wayn3 9y ago
im not saying that proving the riemann conjecture doesnt do anything for mathematics. it does a whole lot. but the world itself isnt going to change. i mean the 5 pm news world. heres the thing. we already kind of assume the riemann conjecture to be true. you can do a lot of things with it. its not PROVEN, and mathematicians will tell you that its not proven, but if it was such a big massive RSA attacks deal, hackers would just "assume" its proven and then calculate those primes. they would very quickly figure out whether the conjecture holds or not, in a practical sense. i think what you misunderstand is that the riemann conjecture already exists. you can already use the result of the conjecture. the missing link is the proof. but you dont need the proof to apply the result. you can just apply it. maybe some mathematician comes along and disproves it. but the result is very accessible. so the result cant be what would enable you to perform polynomial time attacks. it must be the proof. but since you dont know what the proof would look like (because it doesnt exist), it cant be in the proof. therefore, i kinda doubt what youre saying. a conjecture is just a statement by a smart person that lacks the proof. from a mathematical point of view, its not a result. but for everyone else, including serious physicists, conjectures can be used as is to make progress. if the riemann conjecture allowed for primes to be calculated so fast that modern cryptography would suffer, then that would already be happening. but thats just a tangent. my initial point was that the riemann conjecture isnt going to say anything about the world that a journalist will find interesting enough to construct something reportable out of.
- drdeca 9y ago
  I think they meant that finding a proof could involve discoveries leading up to that proof which could lead to <blah>, not that, once we have a proof, we know it, and then we can deriving things using it as an assumption and be more confident in our conclusions, which could lead to <blah>.

VLM 9y ago

If you're bored and hanging out with physicists and/or mathematicians or maybe some engineers, perhaps over some beers you can have a fun conversation along these lines: Here's something uncontroversial: if its in physics, then its in math. Here's a weird proposal: if its in math, then its in physics at a greater than trivial level or it can easily be proven not to be in physics. Or if its in math, either its obviously not in physics or it is in physics even if we don't know yet. Discussion: Aside from souls and such your brain used physics to come up with some math thats not in physics so at a very trivial level that non-physics math was simulated in your physics brain, so it is now in physics because a physics simulation of the particles of your brain, however impractical to actually simulation ... naw thats trivial cheat that would include everything. And speaking of easily be proven, a classic example is we know two dimensional geometry fairly well and it doesn't apply to the greater world although it makes an entertaining plot for a book named "Flatland". So as your buddies gulp down some beers, challenge them to think up a math that is not in physics as kind of a parlor game. It can be fun, especially if you allow extremely extended analogies and have a very relaxed beer fueled attitude toward handwaving arguments. Some topics like string theory or the multiverse will have to be banned to prevent pointless fighting. Anyway the relevance to OP and the comment is that in a drunken handwaving sense math that hasn't been found in physics is possibly a failure of the imagination of the physicist, so Riemann seems useless today is an attack on physicists not an attack on mathematicians. You can just picture some seance between Newton and Maxwell, Yo Mr Physicist I invented all the math you needed centuries before you got around to noticing electromagnetism, like whats your excuse for the delay?

ianai 9y ago

I tell people, sometimes, that studying mathematics felt like studying god's (goddess') thoughts. Physics and the like describe this universe - and somehow mathematics reaches something different. If anything, I wish we had something akin to a mathematics monastery. I'm not talking about academia - that avenue clearly leads to financial enslavement at this point. I'm talking about a place with lots of chalk boards and pretty basic room/board. What would it contribute to society? How about...people with increased thinking skills and a place to belong? It could also taken on consulting work from everywhere. It may end up looking like a liberal arts college or the math wing of the NSA - sans secrecy. I'd also want the barriers to entry to be low.

indigochill 9y ago
If you haven't read "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson, you'd probably enjoy it. It's a science fiction story about basically math monks (there's also a heavy dose of philosophy, though it's pretty much all connected to math in some way).
- alanfalcon 9y ago
  I second this suggestion. Plow through until it clicks and be prepared to give it a second read-through for an all-new experience. That is if you're slow to catch on, as I was.
  - ianai 9y ago
    I bought it. The concept sounds like an interesting thought.
otoburb 9y ago
>>I wish we had something akin to a mathematics monastery. I'm not talking about academia - that avenue clearly leads to financial enslavement at this point. I'm talking about a place with lots of chalk boards and pretty basic room/board. As soon as you wrote that, Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study[1][2] sprang to mind. In 2012-2013 a bunch of mathematics professors got together to organize a research program, from which homotopy type theory[3] (HoTT) was born and a book[4] written to explain their monastic achievement! [1] https://www.ias.edu/ https://www.ias.edu/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Advanced_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Advanced_Study [3] https://www.ias.edu/idea-tags/homotopy-type-theory https://www.ias.edu/idea-tags/homotopy-type-theory [4] https://homotopytypetheory.org/book/ https://homotopytypetheory.org/book/

eastWestMath 9y ago

If I remember correctly, if the Riemann conjecture is proven the geometric complexity theorists have a path to resolve P=NP.

GuB-42 9y ago

Cryptography may be the exception. It is the closest we have to pure maths with direct, real-life consequences.