Re: IMPACT

[Ronnie Brown <ronnie.profbrown@btinternet.com>]

In this context, I would like to give a quotation from the the
Autobiography of Thomas Young (1773-1829), referred to in the book `The
last man who knew everything', Andrew Robinson, Pearson Education Inc,
2006, p.224.

"It is indeed so impossible to forsee the capabilities of improvement in
any science, that it is idle to form any general opinion of what would
be the comparative advantage of the employment of time in any one
investigation rather than another, for almost all the authors of
important discoveries and even of inventions, are led as much by
accident as by system to their success."

Thomas Young  was the person who developed the wave theory of light, and
many other things. See for example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Young_%28scientist%29

However the Government has long enjoined its research assessment panels
to predict the future, without being completely clear on the methodology
for this.

All this does reinforce the good sense in trying to make clear the
(current!)  role of category  theory, and its wide ranging influence.

Ronnie Brown

On 18/07/2011 07:51, Timothy Porter wrote:
> On 17/07/2011 16:51, Andr=E9 Joyal wrote:
>> Dear All,
>>
>> An article on
>>
>> THE UNPLANNED IMPACTS OF MATHEMATICS
>>
>> was recently published in Nature:
>>
>> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7355/full/475166a.html
>>
>> andr=E9
>>

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