Timothy Gowers: The Importance of Mathematics (Part 8)

[Andromedacalling]

this was very very good. Thank you for posting these.

[studyreligion]

2:13

Complexity arise from Simplisity?

or

Simplisity arise from Complexity?

[Willmuzicman1]

The few, the proud, the 8,000 that took time to finish the lecture.

[250mxrider]

He probabaly thought that aplause sounded a bit like a parabolic curve...lol

[abscissus]

Thanks for posting the video.

[chrisrdow]

i think that the argument the quality of beauty is important to understanding mathmatics is wrong, clearly there is not enough space here to argue but you have to ask, are integers beautifull? i would argue yes but they are clearly flawed. A derivative does not seem beatifull to me because infinity is not well defined and limits seem almost ad hoc arguments but it has clearly lasted and is very usefull.

[theartofstew]

"limits are ad hoc arguments"?

are you out of your mind?!!

[superfluousness321]

Thank you for posting this lecture, I really enjoyed it.

[thesinzer]

I really admire Gower's genius combined with his humility. That in itself is beauty.

[deltango12345]

Thanks, correodeadolfo. Anymore stuff like this?

[WarzSchoolchild]

I should add, that I could only do that particular parlour trick, after reading one of my all time heros the late and great Frank Nelson Cole. Beyond 128 bits, we need hyperasyptotes, John P. Boyde's forte. I have one in mind that might crack a 4096 bit composite.

[WarzSchoolchild]

Ouch! I am an Artist! also an applied mathematician, which would have Paul Erdo's praying for my soul. Ahah! I can repost, give me a 128 bit dual prime composite number and I will have factorised it in about an hour without a computer program to do the job, just an arbirary precision calculator like Bcalc. Maths and Art have always been best buddies.

[WarzSchoolchild]

Thank you Timothy Gowers and "coreodeadolfo" A very stimulating lecture. Something Timothy failed to mention, was that the pursuit of mathematics, can lift a person out of the cares and worries of contemporary living. The journey is as beneficial as arriving at the destination.

[TexasRounder]

Well what would the hypothetical finance Minister care about that particular quality of mathematics when he was addressing the concern of public funding?

The main thesis of Gowers talk is that funding for mathematics (by which we mean so-called pure mathematics) should not be relagated to the same category as funding for art, which is generally not seen as a boost to an economy but does, however, also "an lift a person out of the cares and worries of contemporary living."

[gribskoff]

excellent. 2 further examples of seemingly useless mathematical research are boolean algebras (later used in electrical engeneering ) and abstract algebraic structures like groups ( later used in theoretical physics ). But we may be allowed to doubt whether all beauty exemplifies symmetry. An obvious counter-example is the asymmetrical beauty of the distrbution of the stones in a japanese zen-garden.m.s.lourenço.