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Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to give a guest lecture in @ClaudioJacobo's math history course.
I wanted to take some time to share why this was so important to me.
A 10 tweet
on math, history, and math history.
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I wanted to take some time to share why this was so important to me.
A 10 tweet
on math, history, and math history.(1/10)
Claudio asked me to come talk about solving polynomials - if you know my mathematics, you know this is where I live.
We talked about:
-) Geometry and solutions of generic quadratic
-) Tschirnhaus transformations
-) Abel's theorem
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We talked about:
-) Geometry and solutions of generic quadratic
-) Tschirnhaus transformations
-) Abel's theorem
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But we also talked about how we can still solve generic polynomials of higher degree!
I started with the solutions of the quintic due to Bring and Klein and how you can derive them (and their relationship with one another) from the icosahedron and geometry.
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I started with the solutions of the quintic due to Bring and Klein and how you can derive them (and their relationship with one another) from the icosahedron and geometry.
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I gave a brief, informal introduction to essential dimension and resolvent degree (mostly so that if they were interested, they would know the key words to search later).
We then talked about Hilbert's conjectures and the (notably sparse!) literature....
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We then talked about Hilbert's conjectures and the (notably sparse!) literature....
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... which led to our discussion of history and how math does not operate independently of the rest of humanity.
Content warning: This is where we need to talk about Nazi mathematicians.
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Content warning: This is where we need to talk about Nazi mathematicians.
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A lot of work in this area was done / led by Klein and Hilbert and part of the tradition of research at Göttingen.
Large parts of this tradition were destroyed by Nazi mathematicians.
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Large parts of this tradition were destroyed by Nazi mathematicians.
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We talked about how there were a LOT of Nazi mathematicians.
This is a sample of just some Nazi mathematicians and mathematical terms named after them that the current mathematical community still uses.
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This is a sample of just some Nazi mathematicians and mathematical terms named after them that the current mathematical community still uses.
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Inspired by this thread ( https://twitter.com/ProfKinyon/status/1339434615623143424?s=20 ) of @ProfKinyon, we talked about how inaction against the status quo is decidedly an action.
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I told them that, at the end of the day, I don't really care about the time gap in the literature.
I do care about the lives that were destroyed.
And this is just one small snapshot of what was happening at the time.
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I do care about the lives that were destroyed.
And this is just one small snapshot of what was happening at the time.
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The students participated a lot and they asked great questions at the end, like "How did you learn about this stuff?" and "How do your math research and math history interact?"
Up-and-coming mathematicians deserve to know what our history looks like.
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Up-and-coming mathematicians deserve to know what our history looks like.
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P.S. The students were also excited about my research (not specifically featured in this thread) and asked me to share it with them when publicly available.
This meant a lot to me and I can't wait to share it with them! (I'll share it with you too, Twitter, but not now)
This meant a lot to me and I can't wait to share it with them! (I'll share it with you too, Twitter, but not now)
P.S.S. The handwriting style of my slides (which also got nice compliments!) was inspired by slides of @MarissaKawehi (although I am not claiming that mine look as good as hers)
