tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Role of applications in modern mathematics)

dan petersen comments on "Role of applications in modern mathematics" (21591)

dan petersen — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 07:24:33 -0700

I thought the following question: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/124637/ was a bit funny in light of the previous few comments.

Ryan Budney comments on "Role of applications in modern mathematics" (21576)

Ryan Budney — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 08:28:14 -0700

Keep in mind "cleanitize" and "truthiness" are also north american terms. :) We say a lot of silly things over here.

Alexander Chervov comments on "Role of applications in modern mathematics" (21574)

Alexander Chervov — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 03:09:42 -0700

@Ryun thank you very much for your suggestion.
It is somewhat surprinsing for me. For example SIAM (Society of Industrial and Applied Math - this is North America term) so I thought that
"application" typically means something related to "real life".

Ryan Budney comments on "Role of applications in modern mathematics" (21558)

Ryan Budney — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 20:47:02 -0700

I think the question would benefit from describing what you mean by the word "application". By that I am not referring to what you call the "kind of application" -- I am referring the meaning of the word "application" itself.

"Application" as commonly-used in North America sometimes means "I am not the only person on the planet that has thought about this". So there may very well be no industrial usage for the idea at all, or no hope for such, but people still call it an "application". Similarly, if a piece of mathematics is used in String Theory, someone might call that mathematics "applied".

quid comments on "Role of applications in modern mathematics" (21554)

quid — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 06:05:04 -0800

The number of unclosed questions which asks for "opinion" is rather big.

So, it is even more important not to have one more. ;-)

I voted to close the hard problems, and was quite unhappy it got reopened (but then so far it at least "stayed silent" after reopening, so I do only care that much. (And I assume not few did not even realize that it got reopened; I did, but then decided against drawing attention to this fact. Also it had at least one vote to reclose, expired by now though.) The digital pen is ancient (by this site's standards) it is from beginning 2010! (And I think I voted to close various similar questions; in addition to the meaning of 'opinion' being a bit different there.)

Valuable, in what way precisely? And, for some others such questions are annoying. I was not annoyed by yours, but the hard problems besides being, in my opinion, objectively not suitable for the site, subjectively annoyed me quite a bit. The former is the reason why I voted to close, the latter is a reply to the "valuable for many of us" (how many, in fact?). I really fail to see the value of that one. But it has its own meta so I will stop here.

Alexander Chervov comments on "Role of applications in modern mathematics" (21553)

Alexander Chervov — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 05:20:59 -0800

Thank you quid for your comment.
The number of unclosed questions which asks for "opinion" is rather big.
E.g.
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/12898/digital-pen-for-math-your-experiences
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/123081/should-one-attack-hard-problems
or "thinking and explaining" ...
At least this suggests that such questions are valuable for many of us.

quid comments on "Role of applications in modern mathematics" (21552)

quid — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 03:08:39 -0800

I did not vote to close it, but I also will not vote to reopen it either. A main problem with the question is in my opinion that it is very broad, and the subquestions are quite different; as mentioned by Ben McKay in a comment

The thrid sub-question to me seems unsuitable for MO as it seems purely personal.

The first sub-question is perhaps possible but very broad and vague.

The second sub-question however seems quite reasonable, in particular if it were fleshed out a bit. It asks mainly for facts rather than for opinions, and I think different countries indeed are quite different in this regard. Even to the extent what is (officially) considered as mathematics.

For practical reasons it might be unwise to now edit-down this question. But perhaps with some reasonable delay you could just (re)ask something along the lines of the second one.

Alexander Chervov comments on "Role of applications in modern mathematics" (21551)

Alexander Chervov — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 23:31:21 -0800

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/123796/role-of-applications-in-modern-mathematics-closed

has been closed. Let me try to explain my motivation for asking and hopefully convince someone for reopening.

Clearly there are two edge points:

1) Applications are "driving force" for many research directions in nowdays mathematics (especially information theory,
numerical algorithms).

2) Some areas quite successfully developing without connections to applications.

But seems main body of iceberg is in the middle.
The aim of the question is to shed light on that.

"Applications" can be different, some leads to direct usage in industry, some are "nearby".
So hopefully the person answering can specify what kind of application he is talking about.
There is some part of "subjective and argumentative" but I do not agree that
is so serious that can be a reason for closing.