Applied Mathematicians in the Service of Pressing Global Issues
Pure mathematicians, the truths of mathematics, and their “mystery”
When shaping the profile of a mathematician, we get a kind of atypical scientist: one who is concerned more with questions than answers, more with puzzles and conjectures than simple problems, who is more creative than applicative, and usually is more or less inclined toward philosophy. This individual is one whose work is driven by criteria of beauty, symmetry, and aesthetics. (These words in fact characterise pure mathematics itself.) Despite those aesthetic criteria, mathematicians, like scientists, of course search for adequacy, rigour, and truth, but their truth is different from the truths of science. The mathematician has more confidence in mathematical truths than scientists have in their truths or in mathematical truths applied in science.
Mathematicians enjoy mathematical “play.” They can lay down a set of axioms (or modify an existing one) and create a new mathematical theory just to satisfy their intellectual need to play with mathematics. Whether the new theory finds applications in mathematics or sciences seems not to be the concern of its creator. However, the history of science has proved that such theories do eventually find their application, perhaps after decades, and any set of…
