3 ms·

A plan to address the world’s challenges with math

10 points by nsoonhui 3y ago

ykonstant 3y ago
I highly recommend people read the corresponding discussion on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/13ep3ed/a_plan_to_address_the_worlds_challenges_with_math/ https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/13ep3ed/a_plan_to_add... You may be surprised to see a lot of r/math users feeling very negative about the details of this endeavor. A funny summary of the reaction is given by the user derp_trooper: Lots of academics with quantitative orientations are applying their skills to solve social problems. The purpose here seems to be therapy for pure mathematicians having mid-life crisis about the relevance of their work. As someone who is currently in very deep mid-life crisis about my academic field (though not its relevance, other aspects), I feel very strongly for this comment.
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  Do you feel comfortable elaborating your mid-life crisis with your field? Sounds like it could be interesting to read.
- belter 3y ago
  In others words, they don't want anybody to corrupt their purity. :-) https://xkcd.com/435/ https://xkcd.com/435/
akasakahakada 3y ago
People had been doing this in the last 50 years (since 1970s), as you see there are computational sociology, computation geography, computation literature, computational cartography, etc back then. But guess what, non stem people just said "No we don't need math, we don't need quantitative, you can't do humanities research with math", blah blah blah. Everything related to math is unrelated to arts and humanities.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
> A second goal is educational. He wants to broaden the history of the field to more accurately reflect the uncertain origins of many foundational ideas. For example, the core of the mathematical canon is popularly assumed to originate in the teachings of white men in ancient Greece. But in fact, much of that knowledge emerged in the vastness of the ancient Greek empire, which included the modern-day Middle East and North Africa. For Kim, this whitewashing pushes away young people who might contribute to mathematics but don’t see it as belonging to them. And he’s already taken a giant leap back. One of the most beautiful things about mathematics is that you can appreciate its insights, no matter who came up with them. A white girl can be enraptured with Ramanujan’s insights. A black boy can be thrilled with Emmy Noether’s abstract algebra. The sooner we get away from the idea that people will only be interested in certain subjects only if they came from people who look like them, the better.
kaba0 3y ago
The biggest help for distinct fields overall would be to assign statisticians to them. The amount of academics that doesn’t understand anything about statistics/the scientific method is insane. And whether we like it or not, some math knowledge is required for any academic, otherwise we risk some diabetes care paper reinventing calculus badly, taking the “number of little squares beneath the curve” as the true value… [1] [1] https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscovery-of-calculus-in-1994-what-should-have-happened-to-that-paper https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscover...

10 points by nsoonhui 3y ago

I highly recommend people read the corresponding discussion on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/13ep3ed/a_plan_to_address_the_worlds_challenges_with_math/ https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/13ep3ed/a_plan_to_add... You may be surprised to see a lot of r/math users feeling very negative about the details of this endeavor. A funny summary of the reaction is given by the user derp_trooper: Lots of academics with quantitative orientations are applying their skills to solve social problems. The purpose here seems to be therapy for pure mathematicians having mid-life crisis about the relevance of their work. As someone who is currently in very deep mid-life crisis about my academic field (though not its relevance, other aspects), I feel very strongly for this comment.

karmakurtisaani 3y ago
Do you feel comfortable elaborating your mid-life crisis with your field? Sounds like it could be interesting to read.
belter 3y ago
In others words, they don't want anybody to corrupt their purity. :-) https://xkcd.com/435/ https://xkcd.com/435/

akasakahakada 3y ago

People had been doing this in the last 50 years (since 1970s), as you see there are computational sociology, computation geography, computation literature, computational cartography, etc back then. But guess what, non stem people just said "No we don't need math, we don't need quantitative, you can't do humanities research with math", blah blah blah. Everything related to math is unrelated to arts and humanities.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

> A second goal is educational. He wants to broaden the history of the field to more accurately reflect the uncertain origins of many foundational ideas. For example, the core of the mathematical canon is popularly assumed to originate in the teachings of white men in ancient Greece. But in fact, much of that knowledge emerged in the vastness of the ancient Greek empire, which included the modern-day Middle East and North Africa. For Kim, this whitewashing pushes away young people who might contribute to mathematics but don’t see it as belonging to them. And he’s already taken a giant leap back. One of the most beautiful things about mathematics is that you can appreciate its insights, no matter who came up with them. A white girl can be enraptured with Ramanujan’s insights. A black boy can be thrilled with Emmy Noether’s abstract algebra. The sooner we get away from the idea that people will only be interested in certain subjects only if they came from people who look like them, the better.

kaba0 3y ago

The biggest help for distinct fields overall would be to assign statisticians to them. The amount of academics that doesn’t understand anything about statistics/the scientific method is insane. And whether we like it or not, some math knowledge is required for any academic, otherwise we risk some diabetes care paper reinventing calculus badly, taking the “number of little squares beneath the curve” as the true value… [1] [1] https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscovery-of-calculus-in-1994-what-should-have-happened-to-that-paper https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscover...