Ethics in Mathematics at Vassar
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Slides from this colloquium talk are now available online.
Search Results for: ethics
Thoughts on #ShutDownSTEM day
Colleagues who thought that #ShutDownSTEM had nothing to do with mathematics will have been surprised to read this on Wednesday morning in place of their usual list of prepublications: arXiv will not mail a daily announcement on the evening of Tuesday, June 9, 2020. Submissions received at or after 14:00 ET Monday, June 8 and […]
A mathematical home for the socioeconomically inappropriate
A month or so before the conference that closed the special semester I had helped to organize at MSRI in 2014, two of my colleagues at a dessert reception challenged me to deny that, overall, life was pretty good — maybe the claim was that it was better than it had ever been. The question […]
This is only apparently a sex scandal
The news that several departments at Harvard, including the mathematics department, maintained connections with Jeffrey Epstein for many years after his conviction in 2008 “on charges related to soliciting minors for prostitution” has provided an opportunity for expressions of Schadenfreude on the part of several of my French colleagues. Last September, after Harvard President Lawrence […]
It’s official: the author of MWA is not a philosopher
For anyone who read MWA it’s obvious that its author would never be mistaken for, nor would want to be mistaken for, a philosopher. Still, three referees for the journal Synthèse were kind enough to put to rest any lingering doubts on that score (there were none) in their reviews of the article I have just […]
Roundtable video, incorrect proofs, true theorems
The Helix Center has now posted the video of Saturday’s round table on “Mechanization of Mathematics”. The discussion was lively and everyone agreed that we should meet again, or even that we should organize a conference on the theme. Since concern about correctness of proofs is one of the primary motivations of mathematicians who are […]
Will Cédric Villani’s reputation survive his association with Macron?
Cédric Villani’s political orientation has come under increasing scrutiny since his election as deputy on the “République En Marche” (LREM) list created by French President Emmanuel Macron, whose own popularity has fallen precipitously over the first two years of his mandate. Villani’s announcement that he would run, and occasionally dance, for the LREM slot in […]
Ethical Engagement
The webpage of the Cambridge University Ethics in Mathematics Project is still under construction, but the first three Discussion Papers are already available at this page, with more on the way. The title page of the first of these papers, by Maurice Chiodo and Piers Bursill-Hall, is reproduced above. The authors propose a four-level sequence […]
Mathematicians as beneficiaries, and their patrons
What follows are the uncorrected notes for a presentation by videolink at the first workshop on Ethics in Mathematics, held in Cambridge April 20-21, 2018. It’s a humbling experience for me to be asked to speak at this meeting, alongside some authentically legendary figures. Maurice Chiodo and Piers Bursill-Hall have assembled a stellar lineup in […]
Number theory, GCHQ, and kidneys
If you can get past the paywall you can read some of my thoughts on research funding in an article published on March 8 in the Times Higher Education Supplement . If not, here is a “fair use” excerpt: Mathematicians have been reluctant to recognise that if our work interests generous donors, it is often […]
