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X-Comment:  Educacao em Matematica


Acham que se produziu ou produzira' algum efeito
das noticias do Unabomber/matematico em Portugal?
Leram o primeiro artigo que veio no "Publico"?
Ha' muito para fazer quanto 'a
imagem deformada que as pessoas tem da matematica!...
Jaime


>>
>>Workplace:
>>  Unabomber Case Adds to Math's PR Woes
>>
>>  ----
>>
>>  By Gautam Naik
>>  Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
>>
>>  The normally rarefied world of mathematics is abuzz over the image
>>problems created by its unlikely new superstar --
>>  Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski.
>>
>>  On university campuses, at think tanks and in cyberspace, deep thinkers
>>who usually spend their time contemplating arcane
>>  mathematical enigmas are now wringing their hands over more earthly
>>problems. Some worry the arrest of Mr. Kaczynski
>>  -- a brilliant mathematician who forsook academia to live a hermit's
>>life in the Montana woods -- will brand them all as
>>  kooks. Others, lamenting that millions of Americans already have an
>>almost primordial fear of math, warn of long-term
>>  damage to students' test scores on college-entrance exams.
>>
>>  And a few radicals posit the hypothesis that certain parallels can be
>>found between a mathematician's methods and the
>>  methodical madness of the Unabomber, whoever he may turn out to be. The
>>argument has it that both mathematicians and
>>  the Unabomber have a penchant for neatness, think abstractly and pay
>>unstinting attention to detail. Did such qualities,
>>  honed in a world of math, make it possible for Unabomber suspect
>>Kaczynski to carry out a spate of mail bombings over
>>  almost two decades?
>>
>>  The controversy has made for some touchy tempers and unpleasant
>>exchanges in the math set. When the Philadelphia
>>  Inquirer described the suspect as "a former mathematics professor," an
>>offended Swarthmore College professor wrote to
>>  demand that the paper "desist from such guilt by association."
>>
>>  "We don't deserve this," grumbles another math professor, Marcelle
>>Bessman of Jacksonville University in Jacksonville,
>>  Fla. "It's just one more thing we're going to have to deal with."
>>
>>  Mark Pinsky, a mathematician who specializes in stochastic differential
>>equations at Northwestern University in Evanston,
>>  Ill., has had to endure mathematician jokes at choir practice. "Hey,
>>how many bombs have you made lately?" one member
>>  asked him. Prof. Pinsky tried to play along by retorting: "Not since I
>>made a stinkbomb" as a kid.
>>
>>  Of course, other kinds of workers have endured public-relations
>>problems, including U.S. Postal Service employees after
>>  mass shootings and food-industry workers after the arrest of
>>serial-killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Some mathematicians worry their
>>  current image problem may be lasting partly because they tend to keep
>>to themselves and generally feel misunderstood
>>  anyway. To scatter a crowd at a party, advises one professor, merely
>>mention that you teach math.
>>
>>  "Yes, we have a reputation for being standoffish and not from this
>>planet," concedes Prof. Norman Levitt of Rutgers
>>  University in New Jersey, who specializes in the subject of
>>differential topology.
>>
>>  But mathematicians are unaccustomed to tabloid coverage, or at least
>>they were until the arrest of Mr. Kaczynski on April 3.
>>  Some were particularly unhappy to learn that Mr. Kaczynski wasn't
>>merely one of them -- he was a hotshot. He graduated
>>  from Harvard and received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in
>>the mid-1960s, writing his dissertation on boundary
>>  functions, an obscure mathematical problem. He later taught at the
>>University of California at Berkeley. His professional
>>  oeuvre includes six papers published in respected journals.
>>
>>  As a graduate student, Mr. Kaczynski once cracked a tough problem on
>>"boundary behavior of function theory," upstaging
>>  two of his professors. Recalls one of them, George Piranian, now
>>professor emeritus at the University of Michigan: "His
>>  papers were highly detailed; nothing was omitted. He was a brilliant
>>young mathematician. I'm sorry things went wrong."
>>
>>  After the arrest, mathematicians nationwide debated the turn of events
>>and its impact on their field. In a discussion group on
>>  the Internet that usually confers about Fibonacci numbers and Laplace
>>transforms, a member called for "a serious discussion
>>  of the deleterious effects" of math. In a more exclusive group, a
>>mathematician posted a note that likened the "reform"
>>  branch of academic mathematics -- which de-emphasizes the lecture
>>format and stresses real-world computational
>>  problems -- to the Unabomber, though he retracted his position after
>>much criticism.
>>
>>  John Allen Paulos, a well-known mathematician, set off a firefight two
>>weeks ago by writing an opinion piece in the New
>>  York Times arguing that "it is easy to see how one trained in [math]
>>reasoning and in thrall to an ideal would come to justify
>>  murderous acts as a nebulous `good.'" He concluded by noting that if
>>Mr. Kaczynski isn't the Unabomber, "my
>>  speculations are but another example of a mathematician's failure to
>>produce a model that works in the real world."
>>
>>  Some mathematicians were incensed. Prof. Pinsky of Northwestern and a
>>colleague fired off a letter to the editor,
>>  vehemently protesting the Paulos theory. "We are proud of our clean,
>>pure image as mathematicians," Prof. Pinsky says in
>>  an interview. "This is not helping the math profession."
>>
>>  Two other professors also wrote to the Times, branding the Paulos
>>plaint an "absurd analogy." Then came a retort from a
>>  mathematician at Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y., upbraiding her
>>colleagues for failing to see that Prof. Paulos's
>>  article was a spoof.
>>
>>  Not entirely, counters Prof. Paulos, a professor of mathematics at
>>Temple University in Philadelphia and the author of the
>>  book "A Mathematician Reads a Newspaper." He says of his critics: "I
>>think they were well-meaning but excessively
>>  earnest." But he adds that he was only half-joking.
>>
>>  When he read the Unabomber's "manifesto," he immediately wondered
>>whether its author was a mathematician. It
>>  frequently used math terms, describing things that are "held constant."
>>"It is a bloodless document" that "is axiomatic in
>>  nature" and has the feel of "an extended proof," he says.
>>
>>  Some mathematicians find the fuss amusing. "I refuse to be a victim,
>>and I'm not going to found a society to make
>>  mathematicians feel better," says Prof. Piranian, the suspect's former
>>professor at Michigan. Prof. Levitt of Rutgers jokes
>>  that any connections between the Unabomber suspect and mathematicians
>>may actually provide the profession with some
>>  sizzle. "Now," he figures, "they may give us a little more respect."
>
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