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Strange to have non-researchers or non-mathematicians like Lewis Carrol, Ada Lovelace, or Anna Easly included while world-impacting researchers such as Shigefum
by rsj_hn 6y ago
Strange to have non-researchers or non-mathematicians like Lewis Carrol, Ada Lovelace, or Anna Easly included while world-impacting researchers such as Shigefumi Mori, S.T. Yau, Yuri Manin, Stefan Banach, Simon Donaldson, R. Bott, M. Morse, H. Lebesgue, O. Heaviside, J. Leray, J. Tate, E. Calabi, M. Gromov, <strike>G. Perelman</strike>, F. Adams, H. Kunneth, are left out. Where are they getting their lists of people? It seems they classify anyone famous who was "technical" as a mathematician, which is the only reason why I can think of including people like Einstein, Lewis Carroll, or Ada Lovelace (none of whom made any contribution to math) as mathematicians, but leaving out those who made major advances.
- cjv 6y agoVery ignorant comment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_field_equations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_field_equations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll#Mathematical_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll#Mathematical_wor... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace#First_computer_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace#First_computer_pr...
- rsj_hn 6y agoYou're kinda making my point. None of these are actually contributions to mathematical research. A computer program is not mathematical research, nor are field equations in physics. Which is not to say that they are not noteworthy achievements, but it is to say that they are not achievements in mathematics. These three made contributions in other fields. I am not saying they don't deserve fame in the fields of physics or computer science or literature. They certainly do. But they deserve no fame in the field of mathematics, anymore than Morse deserves fame in the field of computer science, or Gromov deserves fame in the field of literature (but he did write books!). The only person in your list of three who could even be called a mathematician was Dodgson, but his contributions are not considered noteworthy enough to make any kind of timeline.
- User23 6y agoComputing science is doing to mathematics what the physical sciences did to philosophy. Within a couple generations “mathematicians” will be a set consisting solely of charlatans and incompetents while the real work is done with formal methods.
- dzolob 6y agoWhat an ignorant comment.
- dang 6y agoPlease stop taking HN threads into flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- User23 6y agoI didn't mean to flame, just calling it as I see it. That said your house your rules thank you for the guidance.
- meiji163 6y agoI have to disagree on Einstein, without the field equations it's doubtful psuedo-Riemannian geometry or so-called "Einstein manifolds" would be so big in math. There is also his work on Brownian motion and diffusion. Even if you deny he did "mathematical research" his importance for mathematics justifies him being on a timeline of mathematics .. imho
- rsj_hn 6y agoYou can argue that Einstein spurred interest in Geometry, but he himself made no contributions to this field. In fact it was pretty famous that he kept bugging Ricci to help him frame his ideas in mathematical terms. Einstein was a physicist through and through, and not even a mathematical physicist. Now someone like Ed Witten is a completely different beast.
- 6y ago
- jzwinck 6y agoPerelman is right there in the opening frame when I look. Maybe you just missed some of those people.
- User23 6y agoDijkstra and Scholten are two huge misses. And of course there’s the ever invisible CS Peirce. Not to put too fine a point on it, but burn in hell in the circle reserved for traitors Simon Newcomb. Einstein is probably the most famous fraud of the 20th century. Strange how many people don’t realize he plagiarized his own wife.
- burk96 6y ago>Einstein is probably the most famous fraud of the 20th century. Strange how many people don’t realize he plagiarized his own wife. Could you provide a source on this? DDG only shows youtube videos and conspiracy websites when searching.
- User23 6y agoUsing a query like [Einstein fraud] or whatever is going to get you crap results. Try something like [Mileva Marić] instead to get results from mainstream sources like SA[1]. And obviously those sources aren't going to throw words like "fraud" around, but you don't even have to read between the lines to see my claim is plausible if not entirely justified. It's yet more evidence that women in STEM have been erased by men taking credit for their work. [1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-forgotten-life-of-einsteins-first-wife/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-forgotte...
- canjobear 6y agoIt’s hard to imagine any finite list like this that doesn’t attract people complaining that their favorite figures were left out.
- xyzzyz 6y agoIt’s not so much about who was left out, but rather about who was put in. Some of the people on the list had pretty much zero impact on mathematics.
- justintho 6y agothese figures give context to the average reader
- monsieurbanana 6y agoAs an average reader, I'd rather not be mislead on
- apricot 6y agoIt looks like they were trying to meet a dual quota of non-white, non-male people. (Also, Yau is there.)
- pierrefermat1 6y agoAbsolutely agree with you here, it's effectively positive discrimination and really a rather distasteful attempt at it. Always bothers me the same happens in Civilization games with scientist lists.
- adrian_b 6y agoCharles Lutwidge Dodgson a.k.a. Lewis Carrol was a mathematician and he published enough original mathematical research. Of course, he is much more famous as a fiction writer than as a mathematician and it can be easily argued that much more important mathematicians (e.g. Grassmann & Clifford and many others) are missing from that timeline, but he certainly cannot be considered as a non-mathematician.
- andi999 6y agoPersonally I believe including Ada is actually a disservice. If I were female I would think wait what? Female accomplishments were so low that with that you already enter the hall of fame? I know the intention is in the other direction, but maybe it's just me overthinking stuff.
- gaius_baltar 6y agoSome names are complete nonsense: why is Benjamin Banneker there for building a mechanical clock in the 1800s (when such things were already everywhere) while Phillip Hahn (who build a four-operation mechanical calculator) in the 1700s is not? They added Katherine Johnson who developed no new theories or applications on Math or Computer Science, but left Margaret Hamilton out (and she was the pioneer and creator of an entire new field!)