RE: cracks and pots

["Marta Bunge" <martabunge@hotmail.com>]

Dear Vincent,

I am glad that you posted your reply to me. You raise questions that many of
us have and that really relate to what I was trying to convey.  I hope that
your letter is widely read. I will only comment on one aspect of it.

>Of course the problem is the way research is sponsored.
>Leading researchers are not so much good mathematicians
>but good salesmen. Category theory is just not very trendy at the
>minute and to get the money one needs to do theoretical physics
>(there had been also Computer Science at some point - that was poor
>is not it?).
>There were a couple of Fields medals and  a new train called
>TQFT that everybody just jumps in to get funded.

I see nothing wrong in seeking funding for serious and well-motivated
research. Young people have to eat too! What I worry about (this I did not
say before) is that this craze for funding may drive researchers to accept
*any* kind of funding, thinking naively that there are no strings (no pun
intended) attached. When I was young, I once rejected NATO funding and,
since there was no other source of funding for me at the moment, I had to
go back to Argentina for two years and thus interrupt my graduate studies
at Penn. Nowadays, it is the turn of organizations such as the Templeton
Foundation (seeking to conciliate science with religion) which offer
"graciously" to fund (and lavishly so) many projects in philosophy,
physics and mathematics.

Examples of Templeton funding are increasingly found: take the Perimeter
Insitute (String Theory), the Godel Centennary Symposium in Vienna (Logic
and Foundations), the workshop organized by A. Connes at the Sir Isaac
Newton Insititue in Cambridge (Non Commutative Algebra), and others that
are mentioned in Nature, for instance. This is all for public consumption
-- just look at their web sites. Some of us find this really scary. That
is why I do not put the getting of grants as a priority-- good science and
good mathematics should always be the main priority.

But then, you will ask, how do we feed graduate students, postdocs and
unemployed category theorists? I do not know, but certainly not by resorting
to dubious sources of funding. Not that it has happened yet! Forgive my
"using" your comment to give way to a deep source of worry, certainly not
unrelated to what I have been saying since the beginning of this discussion.


As for

>2/ Will be the rebirth of category - I bet!


This is partly what I was asking -- are we (CT) in such a poor state that we
need to be reborn in another guise? Maybe so, but I am just too immersed in
my own (certainly not main stream) work to really judge. You are not the
only one to suggest that we need an uplift. That may be so, but is it the
reason for thinking it merely that there are no grants coming our way these
days --  except when we (say that we) work in matters of interest to
physics?

It seems that I have only questions to ask -- not solutions to give. I
apologize for that.


Best wishes,
Marta

>From: "V. Schmitt" <vs27@mcs.le.ac.uk>
>To: categories@mta.ca
>Subject: categories: Re: cracks and pots
>Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 09:51:00 +0000
>
>Dear Marta,
>My english is so, so. I am french.
>But this is to give briefly my opinion (I agree with you
>more or less).
>
>I know a little of category and mathematics in general.
>I love the category theory developped in the 70's and
>I would have appreciated some category meetings at the
>time.  But i am too young.
>
>Category theory like any good mathematics will never
>die - but may "our" category community will.
>
>Of course the problem is the way research is sponsored.
>Leading researchers are not so much good mathematicians
>but good salesmen. Category theory is just not very trendy at the
>minute and to get the money one needs to do theoretical physics
>(there had been also Computer Science at some point - that was poor
>is not it?).
>There were a couple of Fields medals and  a new train called
>TQFT that everybody just jumps in to get funded.
>
>Now as a *community* what shall *we* do?
>
>First the question regards mainly the established
>people in the community (not me!).
>1/ One can try to sell category theory  in a better way.
>This is a bit like tomato sauce that you can put everywhere.
>And try to make new friends - inviting them to give talks... -
>from different disciplines.
>2/ We may claim loudly that cat theory is real mathematics
>and really try hard to do good mathematics. There are
>certainly good mathematicians definitely willing to use
>cat theory.  I saw many coming to category theory to develop
>their own maths (- this happens for instance in France with Berger who
>will never claim that he is a "categorician". Though he is completely
>in it!)
>
>My feeling is the attitude 1/ pushed to the extreme may be
>very damaging.  These talks about category everywhere and
>for everything are just poor and sound really stupid.
>They do not serve the cause.
>
>2/ Will be the rebirth of category - I bet!
>
>Sorry for the message written in haste
>and the poor english. Good e-mails from you
>on the list!
>
>best regards,
>Vincent.
>
>
>
>