From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/4934 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Ronnie Brown" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Famous unsolved problems in ordinary category theory Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 12:07:17 +0100 Message-ID: Reply-To: "Ronnie Brown" NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;format=flowed;charset="iso-8859-1";reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1244224439 13634 80.91.229.12 (5 Jun 2009 17:53:59 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 17:53:59 +0000 (UTC) To: "John Iskra" , Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Fri Jun 05 19:53:56 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mailserv.mta.ca ([138.73.1.1]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1MCdc4-0002cU-Kr for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:53:56 +0200 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1MCcvw-0000P3-WA for categories-list@mta.ca; Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:10:25 -0300 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:4934 Archived-At: John, Glad you liked it! Thanks for the references to Raoul Bott. Mind you there was a serious point: how to turn abstract mathematics into machine computation? I have discussed this often with Larry Lambe. Ronnie ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Iskra" To: "Ronnie Brown" Cc: "Hasse Riemann" ; Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 3:54 AM Subject: Re: categories: Re: Famous unsolved problems in ordinary category theory > One of my favorite quotes: > > The question you raise ``how can such a formulation lead to > computations'' doesn't bother me in the least! Throughout my whole life > as a mathematician, the possibility of making explicit, elegant > computations has always come out by itself, as a byproduct of a thorough > conceptual understanding of what was going on. Thus I never bothered > about whether what would come out would be suitable for this or that, > but just tried to understand -- and it always turned out that > understanding was all that mattered. > > A. Grothendieck > > > Raoul Bott reinforced this in a talk I had the privilige to hear back in > 98. He said that mathematics, done well, never required the placing of > your oar in the water (he probably put it better than that...). The > idea I think is that if you continually ask and answer the questions > that occur to you, and, thus, gain understanding, then you will > inevitably make progress. And that is what matters, really. So often > the person credited with solving a 'famous' problem only takes the final > step in a hard journey of a thousand miles made by a thousand others. > > Glory and fame - such as it is in the world of mathematics - are nice, > but they are not, in the end, mathematics. I think it is of high > importance to avoid confusing them. > > John Iskra > [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]