Pure Math, Pure Joy

e271828 writes "The New York Times is carrying a nice little piece entitled Pure Math, Pure Joy about the beauty and applicability of pure math as carried out at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. There is an accompanying slideshow of pictures of mathematicians in action; I particularly loved the picture titled Waging Mental Battle with a Proof."

Ah yes...

[Joel Bruick]

The joy of pure math. Second only to the joy of pure self-mutilation.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

What? I don't understand. No registration? OMG.

Waging mental battle with a proof

[pytheron]

What this picture doesn't show is the analogue clock just above the blackboard.. they aren't thinking.. just clock-watching !

Fish

[Scrameustache]

I like the picture where someone is drawing a fish [nytimes.com] on the blackboard while others are doing math.

Who knew that I had a future in advance mathematics when I was doodling in my math notebook during class? : )

They took the pic just as he was about to draw the eye...

Re:Slahsdot reproduces NYT in it's entirety.

[Joel Bruick]

Slashdot: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters. NYTimes.com mirror.

Re:Visualizing the solution...

[drooling-dog]

Speaking of prime numbers & slightly off-topic, on 5/31/2003 there was an eclipse (solar) over Norway from 4:43AM to 6:41AM. 5, 31, 2003, 443 & 641 are all prime...

Heh heh... If you noticed that then you would've failed this too. A while back my girlfriend showed me a question from a Mensa test that clued me in to what that organization is all about:

Which is the odd one out: (a) 4 (b) 15 (c) 9 (d) 12 (e) 5 (f) 8 (g) 30 (h) 18 (i) 24 (j) 10

Well, anyone who knows a prime from a hole in the ground would choose (e), but the correct answer was (f), 8. And why? Because it is the only "symmetrical" number, as printed on the page!

Re:It's not that obvious

[wfberg]

Actually, you do need to tell me just how useful a 100-digit prime number is. Beyond the supposed beauty of such a number (I personally don't see the beauty of it, but then again beauty is a really subjective term), what's the point? What are prime numbers useful for in daily life?

Nothing. Ab-so-lutely nothing. Promise never to use them??

(installing a network sniffer right now)

Re:It's not that obvious

[wfberg]

What are prime numbers useful for in daily life?


Searching 1976 to present...


Results of Search in 1976 to present db for:
"prime number": 1238 patents. [uspto.gov]

I also love the last picture....

[greppling]

i.e. this one [nytimes.com].

Look how seriously the guy on the right side is watching a fish being drawn...

Re:Visualizing the solution...

[Guppy06]

Sounds like you've been working in Domino's longer than you've been working in binary. :)

Re:It's not that obvious

[Alsee]

Results of Search in 1976 to present db for:
"prime number": 1238 patents. [uspto.gov]

Ah! So prime numbers are useful for getting patents.

-

Are the spooks running out of mathematicians?!

[carstenkuckuk]

Why else would a major newspaper have a piece that describes maths in a positive light?

Re:Waging mental battle with a proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill: so Bob, have you noticed that cute blonde in your 10:00 am Algebra class ?
.
Bob: Oh yeah ! I am going to try and convince her that .5" is actually equal to 1".
.
Frank: You guy's are so childish - lets smoke another bowl.

What about Dr. Evil?

[dark_revenant]

You ever hear of an evil or mad Mathematician? Nope, only evil or mad scientists.While they may not be philanthropists, they are not super weapon packing misanthropes. Oh well, back to the lab...

Math is cool now?

[Sanity]

The sweat glistened on his brow as he bravely hammered away at the keyboard - it was a life or death situation, Travolta's character had set the good-looking well-built computer geek an impossible challenge - factorize a large prime number while receiving a blow-job from a beautiful woman, all within sixty seconds...

...nope, I guess if John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, and Halle Berry can't make hacking sound exciting, then a few photos of geeks staring at blackboards are unlikely to make mathematicians the new sex-symbols either.

Re:You can trust the NYT

[dracken]

Yep and ofcourse everybody knows that mathematicians do it smoothly and continuously or discretely in groups and in fields. Interesting lifestyle :P

Nobody takes notes like those!!

[haruchai]

In photo 3 of the slideshow. What is he - an honors calligraphy student taking an elective Math course. I can't be that neat when writing greeting cards, let alone taking notes in class.

Re:What about Dr. Evil?

[TedCheshireAcad]

Ha, you laugh now, but wait until Wile's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem becomes self-aware. THEN who's laughing?

;-)

(j) is correct!

[Evil Pete]

It is clearly the only answer written in binary.

Mathturbation

[cbare]

Pure math has been described by one friend of mine as "mathturbation", while another observed that the entire field of computer science has a severe case of "Math Envy". I'm more down with the later opinion.

Re:Ah yes...

[martin-boundary]

The joy of pure math. Second only to the joy of pure self-mutilation.

Interesting, can you write down a proof for that?

Re:Ah yes...

[Bush Pig]

Some of them must ... otherwise where do the little mathematicians come from?