> In a similar vein, John Baez was considering (ultimately declining) an opportunity [...] But did he ultimately decline? The link you posted has this content

> In a similar vein, John Baez was considering (ultimately declining) an opportunity [...] But did he ultimately decline? The link you posted has this content at the very end: > Something tipped the scales and I said yes. We applied for the grant, and we got it. > And so, an interesting adventure began. It will last for 3 years, and I’ll say more about it soon. And further down, this is his reply to a reader comment: > As I said at the end of my post, I am working with Metron on this CASCADE project, and I’ll be doing it for 3 years. My decision was not predicated on the hope that the US will do anything in particular. It’s predicated on the hope that I’ll make faster progress in my research if I team up with some more practical people and use my math skills to tackle a concrete problem in network theory: namely, optimizing search and rescue missions. I’ll get lots of new ideas which I wouldn’t get otherwise, and I’ll publish papers on these ideas. > If I were only searching for mathematical beauty in the word I wouldn’t feel the need to work on this project, because beauty is so easy to find. Instead, I’m trying to develop network theory into a useful set of tools.