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Robert Langlands: The Greatest Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of?

thewalrus.ca

11–20 of 78 posts

Re: Robert Langlands: The Greatest Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of?

#11
post #2

There should be a submission guideline that disallows such useless titling.

Many, many times I've put in the time and taken care to create a better title than the one on the article, only subsequently to have it changed by the mods. I've given up doing that.

Re: Robert Langlands: The Greatest Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of?

#14
post #9

I've heard of him and I'm just a regular everyday normal guy who codes for a living.

You'd be surprised how "regular everyday guys" haven't heard of him. In fact I'd be surprised if most US citizens can even name the vice president of the US, even with all the hoopla around Trump's presidency...

Conversation topic transition diagram in the past few years:

Politics -> Trump

History -> Trump

Computing -> Trump

...

Mathematics -> Trump

Trump -> Trump

* -> Trump

That gets old pretty soon.

Re: Robert Langlands: The Greatest Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of?

#15
Working mathematician here --

1. Langlands is indeed a great mathematician, whose work has been enormously influential.

2. Most of us aren't all that eccentric. He wrote his paper in Russian, a language which he (presumably) does not natively speak, apparently just for the heck of it? That's just weird.

Most of the mathematicians I know, including the most influential ones, are relatively normal people. And they want as many people to read their work as possible, and don't throw up artificial roadblocks. (Most working mathematicians cannot read or write Russian.)

3. There is not that big of a conflict between pure and applied mathematicians. (Except when they're competing for money, or trying to decide whom to hire in their departments.)

The most common attitude among pure mathematicians is: we work on mathematical questions for their own sake, and don't think too much about applications to the "real world" -- but we are happy if it is brought to our attention that such applications exist.

Re: Robert Langlands: The Greatest Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of?

#16

Oh, Robert Langlands! I worked on a short film about him, for the Abel Prize ceremony, last March. http://www.abelprize.no/artikkel/vis.html?tid=73176

This is a charming film! How did you decide to include things like that little bit about him paying for the lectures he had posters of? Or the scene where you were peaking in from outside (which I suppose is a metaphor for the craft of creating character films in the first place).

Re: Robert Langlands: The Greatest Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of?

#17

Working mathematician here -- 1. Langlands is indeed a great mathematician, whose work has been enormously influential. 2. Most of us aren't all that eccentric. He wrote his paper in Russian , a language which he (presumably) does not natively speak, apparently just for the heck of it? That's just weird. Most of the mathematicians I know, including the most influential ones, are relatively normal people. And they wan…

In the library here they have a book called "Russian for Mathematicians".

Re: Robert Langlands: The Greatest Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of?

#18

Working mathematician here -- 1. Langlands is indeed a great mathematician, whose work has been enormously influential. 2. Most of us aren't all that eccentric. He wrote his paper in Russian , a language which he (presumably) does not natively speak, apparently just for the heck of it? That's just weird. Most of the mathematicians I know, including the most influential ones, are relatively normal people. And they wan…

In the library here they have a book called "Russian for Mathematicians".

Maybe if you need to look up some soviet era literature?

Re: Robert Langlands: The Greatest Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of?

#20

Working mathematician here -- 1. Langlands is indeed a great mathematician, whose work has been enormously influential. 2. Most of us aren't all that eccentric. He wrote his paper in Russian , a language which he (presumably) does not natively speak, apparently just for the heck of it? That's just weird. Most of the mathematicians I know, including the most influential ones, are relatively normal people. And they wan…

According to Wikipedia: " Langlands likes to learn foreign languages, both for better understanding of foreign publications on his topic and just as a hobby. He speaks French, Turkish, German and Russian".

I'd say it's not _that_ weird, if he likes foreign languages, to combine both his passions and write one paper in Russian :) Also considering there are actually a lot of mathematicians who can read and write Russian.

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