Ramanujian's Deathbed Problem Cracked 205
Jake's Mom sends word of the serendipitous solution to a decades-old mathematical mystery. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin have unraveled a major number theory puzzle left at the death of one of the twentieth century's greatest mathematicians, Srinivasa Ramanujan. From the press release: "Mathematicians have finally laid to rest the legendary mystery surrounding an elusive group of numerical expressions known as the 'mock theta functions.' Number theorists have struggled to understand the functions ever since... Ramanujan first alluded to them in a letter written [to G. H. Hardy] on his deathbed, in 1920. Now, using mathematical techniques that emerged well after Ramanujan's death, two number theorists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have pieced together an explanatory framework that for the first time illustrates what mock theta functions are, and exactly how to derive them."
Good job! (Score:5, Insightful)
Although, it could do with one less "i"
Ramanujan (Score:5, Insightful)
Disappointing (Score:5, Insightful)
It takes a near-century-old problem to be solved to pop a maths story on slashdot - and TFA holds no details. To get on any kind of mainstream news, the Poincare conjecture needs to be solved, and then we get "Perelman proved a rabbit was a sphere".
Mathematics at universities worldwide is being dumbed down for the pursuit of the cashed-up Engineering student. Mathematicians get no kind of acclaim for their work - even compared to other 'unglamourous' pursuits. People these days don't seem to appreciate the debt they owe to mathematics.
What's it going to take for mathematicians to get some mainstream coverage? A sex scandal?
Re:Ramanujan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ramanujan (Score:5, Insightful)
Might it be that education structures the mind to follow the known paths? Perhaps by not knowing the 'usual' solutions, you can come up with a more elegant and deep solution?
Ease of understanding & teaching. (Score:5, Insightful)
I really think the reason why a lot of people are bewildered with math (& thus ignore it) is that they were never really able to approach it properly. Mathematics has a tendency in university to not explain itself properly. Things that I found rather simple in the end were just never explained clearly, were incomplete explanations, assumed you knew & understood concepts from other, unrelated courses, or were given "pseudo-explinations" that kind-of explained something but not properly, giving potential incorrect understandings that could be disastrous later (think high school math).
The entire cutter mentality that math classes can tend to be in university don't help much either (what is probably the #1 reason why people drop their hard science/engineering/comp sci courses?? Probably MATH!)
Once I figured whatever a concept really meant in math, I realized reading the textbook after the fact (sometimes several courses later) they use terms and concepts that aren't explained at all or they use really obtuse english sentences while simply defined symbolic language could easily show the concept. Actually most of it I found rather simple & clear in the end once I got to understand it but found that the textbook just explained it, badly or with huge gaps in their explinations.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ramanujan (Score:5, Insightful)
At the same time, Hardy acknowledged that "on the other hand he would have been less of a Ramanujan, and more of a European professor, and the loss might have been greater than the gain." (From Hardy's article in "The American Mathematical Monthly" 44.3 (1937), p. 137-155.)
Re:Ramanujan (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ramanujan (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I have heard this many, many times, mostly as an indictment of the educational system. I'm not saying the educational system doesn't have problems, but I always found this to be a weird thing for Republicans to point out. "Educated people tend to vote Democrat." It could reflect some sort of bias in the educational system, or it could simply reflect a bias of informed, intelligent people towards Democrat. If I were trying to support the Republican party, I think I would try to downplay this particular trend. Then again, what do I know about political maneuvering?
Re:Ease of understanding & teaching. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ease of understanding & teaching. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you were told to explain a toolbox to a group of people, without being allowed to pull in outside material (like wood or nails), and the people were looking for some sort of deep appreciation for a screw driver, you would probably have difficulty even if you were a professional carpenter. No cries of "You will need to know this later!" will make people pay attention, and you will be hard pressed to find something that will actually help people understand.
What needs to be done is that people need to learn to think at an early age, become comfortable with abstract ideas, and the people teaching children about math need to understand what they are saying (so that they don't then say something wrong which forever taints someone's thinking). That way, when people get to college, they won't have to drop engineering classes because they don't like math.
Re:Indian mathematicians (Score:3, Insightful)