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Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman and Iranian to win Fields Medal, has died

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Re: Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman and Iranian to win Fields Medal, has died

#11
I hope to study (non-inter-universal) Teichmueller theory some day, as a side quest on my own journey (which is vaguely directed in some sense toward number theory at present). It's the best way I can think of to honor her memory: to learn to appreciate the ideas that she devoted her life to understanding better.

Here is a picture of her drawing on one of her vast sheets of paper.

https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2014/08/Maryam-Mirza...

Re: Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman and Iranian to win Fields Medal, has died

#13
post #6

Iranian here, one point I really want to mention is following despite our theocratic regime, really I have to mention, Iran is not Suadi Arabia or anything like that. Girls and Boys do get the almost exactly same education, they have great opportunity to be a successful scholar in any branch of science they want (yes, It is like USA, your parent demographic will decide which university you most like end up into. But…

More and more Americans understand that anti-Iranian sentiment here is mainly due to propaganda, not any rational considerations. Iran should be a natural ally of the US.

Iran was a natural ally until the US dropped the gold standard and now it's in the middle of a proxy war with Russia for control of the trade of its oil and gas resources. That has led to a pretty massive disintegration of culture and governance. Go ahead and compare photos of Tehran in the 70s vs today.

Re: Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman and Iranian to win Fields Medal, has died

#14
post #6

Iranian here, one point I really want to mention is following despite our theocratic regime, really I have to mention, Iran is not Suadi Arabia or anything like that. Girls and Boys do get the almost exactly same education, they have great opportunity to be a successful scholar in any branch of science they want (yes, It is like USA, your parent demographic will decide which university you most like end up into. But…

More and more Americans understand that anti-Iranian sentiment here is mainly due to propaganda, not any rational considerations. Iran should be a natural ally of the US.

I hope you're right. I have met quite a few Iranians here in the States and it often leaves me feeling very sad that government & media rhetoric is so negative and narrow-sighted.

Another example of how the macro reality we create can become massively misaligned with ground-level truths.

Re: Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman and Iranian to win Fields Medal, has died

#15

It looks like her research is here: http://math.stanford.edu/~mmirzakh/Research.html And the paper in question that got the Fields Medal might be one of these: http://math.stanford.edu/~mmirzakh/Papers/VA.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.5574.pdf It looks like her work involved counting the number of equivalent paths between two points on surfaces that have been punctured.

Curtis McMullen describes Mirzakhani's prize-winning work here

http://www.math.harvard.edu/~ctm/papers/home/text/papers/icm...

and as a talk at 2014 ICM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC7MZv1JH8w

Re: Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman and Iranian to win Fields Medal, has died

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More and more Americans understand that anti-Iranian sentiment here is mainly due to propaganda, not any rational considerations. Iran should be a natural ally of the US.

The Iranian hardliners do a lot to stoke that flame too. Much like us, they have a polarized society. Their support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and other problematic groups complicates things too. Add to that the fact that it would be tough to repair the rift with Iran, while managing our Saudi relationship. All that said, I think it's a worthy undertakings to normalize relations with Iran. And selfishly, I look forward to…

Honest question, how does Iran's support for Hezbollah and Hamas directly affect Americans? I'd argue that Saudi Arabia's support for ISIS and Al-Qaeda had more/actual negative effects on Americans.

Re: Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman and Iranian to win Fields Medal, has died

#17
post #6

Iranian here, one point I really want to mention is following despite our theocratic regime, really I have to mention, Iran is not Suadi Arabia or anything like that. Girls and Boys do get the almost exactly same education, they have great opportunity to be a successful scholar in any branch of science they want (yes, It is like USA, your parent demographic will decide which university you most like end up into. But…

This needs correction then? http://www.lonelyplanet.com/iran/women-travellers

Re: Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman and Iranian to win Fields Medal, has died

#18
post #6

Iranian here, one point I really want to mention is following despite our theocratic regime, really I have to mention, Iran is not Suadi Arabia or anything like that. Girls and Boys do get the almost exactly same education, they have great opportunity to be a successful scholar in any branch of science they want (yes, It is like USA, your parent demographic will decide which university you most like end up into. But…

Iranian-American here ... I think the days where Americans hold anti-Iran sentiments are long past. At least, amongst educated types. There's a lot of curiosity about Iranians and the culture. For example, I just went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas and was surprised to see an exhibit of contemporary Iranian art (i.e., modern art made by young artists recently living in Tehran, NYC, London, etc). The Iranian restaurants, even in Texas, are packed, and half the guests are non-Iranian, American born people.

Probably going through the experience of becoming jaded about our own government helped. We (USA) are now one of those countries where people have to say "don't look at the government, the people are decent." So people here with an ounce of curiosity about the world understand the same as to Iran. And then you have more people who even understand the role the US played in destabilizing Iran which put it on trajectory to its current regime.

Re: Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman and Iranian to win Fields Medal, has died

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Iranian hardliners do a lot to stoke that flame too. Much like us, they have a polarized society. Their support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and other problematic groups complicates things too. Add to that the fact that it would be tough to repair the rift with Iran, while managing our Saudi relationship. All that said, I think it's a worthy undertakings to normalize relations with Iran. And selfishly, I look forward to…

Honest question, how does Iran's support for Hezbollah and Hamas directly affect Americans? I'd argue that Saudi Arabia's support for ISIS and Al-Qaeda had more/actual negative effects on Americans.

They affect Israel. For better or for worse, Israel has a special relationship with the US. Obama had tried to moderate it over the past eight years, but...
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