Board 8 > So apparently the UK has decided pure math is not worth funding

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/20/mathematicians-uk-maths-funding-cuts

Pretty ridiculous. With the way the US is currently headed I'm sort of worried something like this could happen here.

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Pure math is garbage.


*blastin' off, yo*

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rocket157 posted...
Pure math is garbage.

Tons of math useful currently in science and engineering (I'd guess most, actually) was originally developed in a pure math context!

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rocket157 posted...
Pure math is garbage.


*blastin' off, yo*

People like you are the reason this is happening.

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LordoftheMorons posted...
rocket157 posted...
Pure math is garbage.

Tons of math useful currently in science and engineering (I'd guess most, actually) was originally developed in a pure math context!

To point out several things:

1) Merely because they were invented in mathematics first doesn't necessarily that it couldn't be invented in science, engineering when they were needed and when less brainpower was "lost". There is such a thing as an opportunity cost, although I don't think anyone can say for certain how much there is until we gain a better understanding of neurological basis of mathematical discoveries (and I probably would have to eat my words)
2) Not something you said, but I disagree that it's impossible, in theory, for someone to evaluate which areas of math or more or less practical. I don't know of anyone who actually has done an analysis of how many techniques were a result of serendipity, which ones scale well with more people working on them.

HOWEVER,

It's abundantly clear that the British government hasn't actually considered that, I mean seriously wtf cutting computational mathematics? I have kinda a soft spot for statistics and probability theory, but I half suspect that those haven't been cut because they look really shiny to government officials who like to brag about misleading metrics. Not consulting the math community at all is very foolish even if they could be guilty of motivated reasoning, simply because they'd have a much more accurate view of which programs are more scaleable with money.

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meisnewbie posted...

1) Merely because they were invented in mathematics first doesn't necessarily that it couldn't be invented in science, engineering when they were needed and when less brainpower was "lost". There is such a thing as an opportunity cost, although I don't think anyone can say for certain how much there is until we gain a better understanding of neurological basis of mathematical discoveries (and I probably would have to eat my words).

Well yeah, sure (one example that comes to mind is early particle physicists basically rederiving group theory because they didn't know it existed), but given how much of research involves a good deal of brilliance, I think it's reasonable to expect that on average things would be delayed.

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If math is worthwhile, it doesn't need government funding. There are TONS of practical uses for advanced mathematics. I refuse to believe that it'll just disappear without government hand-outs.

I could understand, like, the literary criticism department being concerned with something like this, but come on, mathematicians are supposed to be better than this.

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SmartMuffin posted...
If math is worthwhile, it doesn't need government funding. There are TONS of practical uses for advanced mathematics. I refuse to believe that it'll just disappear without government hand-outs.

I could understand, like, the literary criticism department being concerned with something like this, but come on, mathematicians are supposed to be better than this.

See the problem is that the applications of pure math are not immediately obvious, but statistically speaking it's pretty likely that they will eventually be found. This means that there isn't a huge amount of incentive for companies who are focused on short term profits to fund pure mathematicians. Pure math will not disappear without governmental funding, as universities will certainly still fund it, but it could lead to mathematicians leaving the UK to go to another country which puts higher value on their contributions.

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Well, in the US, universities get most of their money from high tuition and alumni donations rather than the government, so the same thing probably couldn't happen here. It's not like pure math needs a lot of funding; you don't have to build giant particle accelerators to support math research.

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LordoftheMorons posted...
meisnewbie posted...

1) Merely because they were invented in mathematics first doesn't necessarily that it couldn't be invented in science, engineering when they were needed and when less brainpower was "lost". There is such a thing as an opportunity cost, although I don't think anyone can say for certain how much there is until we gain a better understanding of neurological basis of mathematical discoveries (and I probably would have to eat my words).

Well yeah, sure (one example that comes to mind is early particle physicists basically rederiving group theory because they didn't know it existed), but given how much of research involves a good deal of brilliance, I think it's reasonable to expect that on average things would be delayed.

I'm not sure merely because it's "reasonable" that it would be necessarily true. I don't know enough about the history and productivity of mathematical research in order to make any definitive claims, but money that's being spent on... oh I don't know of any distinctively less useful mathematical discipline... uhhhh anything mathematical talent wasted on string theory related stuff could instead be used on... I don't know... solving P=NP (...although this is CS), better numerical analysis techniques so that material science stuff can developed faster or drawing people into the math industry itself.

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Actually... has there been any research on research? You think some sociology professor would have gotten into that at some point.

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