Comments on: The Probability of this Uncle Being Awesome is High.

By: PS

PS — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 02:38:57 +0000

PS – not sp! Sorry the above statement is made by PS, not SP

By: SP

SP — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 02:36:23 +0000

Anna, I too am a mallu w/o any calculus background – I never realized what a big thing that was when I chose to opt out of the calculus program in high school – I just knew I would never have a use for calculus. As an anthro/history major I didn’t have to take calculus at UNC-CH. For my parents they realized early on I wasn’t any math – science genius and had no intention of going to medicine – therefore they felt sure that I would marry a medicine man and would not have to understand his math – science background as long as I could cook him great dosas.

By: Kurma

Kurma — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 11:42:52 +0000

A couple of years ago, I would have said that it’s amazing that a professor’s son is a trader in GS. But not now. It seems natural, esp. considering Varadhan’s area of work.

By: Achayans

Achayans — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 04:43:56 +0000

The sad fact is I came to know about him for the first time after reading about his son, who is a trader at Goldman and made the Trader 100 ( top 100 earning traders) list.

By: Kurma

Kurma — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:00:49 +0000

Having a nude statue of yourself - that can be uncomfortable ....

Shiva, what's wrong with engineering schools having they math departments packed with applied mathematicians?

By: shiva

shiva — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 03:46:48 +0000

TIFR, Matscience, HC Instititute, Allahabad, and a few other institutions are no doubt very good. But they are struggling to attract students and faculty. As for the universities and even some IITs less said the better. The university funding system in India is insane; there are some places where 90% of the budget is used to pay salaries! Even in the IITs the maths department is more involved with teaching the engg students. One very well known school (extremely well regarded I may add) till recently employed engineering math faulty only in its maths department and had nothing to do with the deeper mathematics its counterparts elsewhere are known for. The ISI – a pioneer in mathematical statistics – which at one time advised the US government, is today struggling to find students. Every year almost the entire M.Stat. class (~15-20) leaves for greener pastures abroad. And with the present craze for the service sector young mathematicians are snapped up by I-banks. There are people like Narendra Karmarkar who return to work in India. But for every Karmarkar there are many Madhusudans and Varadhans. Typically in India, Maths Olympiad contestants get to train for about a month. In other countries contestants are spotted early and put into special schools where they do little else.

And what is this thing about a 3rd world mathematicians prize. Are they not capable of competing with 1st world mathematicians? Or must 1st world mathematicians be kept out of contention for the Ramanujan young mathematicians prize? Considering the Fields must be won by 40; the Ramanujan “Young” Mathematicians prize is misnamed with its 45 year age limit! Now why not set an age limit of say 27 or 33?

By: amaun

amaun — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:19:41 +0000

A person from siddhartha's link won this award

Congratulations to Varadhan & Sujatha.

By: P.G. Wodehoue

P.G. Wodehoue — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:37:47 +0000

this was the same point when I was also the only Malayalee. I believe this allowed me to slip under the radar and avoid this brutal requirement easily.

Being Malayalee is not a valid excuse. Madhava was a great Malayalee mathematician.

Note that India did not merely contribute the decimal system. There was far more.

Finally, note that I am quoting a Scottish source. Earlier, I used to feel that Indian sources were jingoistic. After emigrating to the US, I have begun to feel this is not the case.

Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming contains several historical references, many of which are not European.

By: Kurma

Kurma — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 19:58:42 +0000

While I agree that this awards business is relatively new to Mathematics, Perelman turning down the Field medal has little to do with this. Here's the "famous" New Yorker article on the matter. He dislikes mathematicians and that's that. It wouldn't have matter what award was given to him. Now, if there were a million bucks to go with it... such as the Clay Mathematics Institute prize....

Perelman won't say whether he would decline the CMI prize unless he is offered it first.

By: cerealkiller

cerealkiller — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 19:55:55 +0000

it will be at least another 100 years before it produces anything of value.

things are changing...