Re:The Cathedral and the Bizarre
by joppy on Saturday December 14, 2019 @08:34PM
(#21793817)
Bourbaki were certainly made up of a collection of leading mathematicians, but the works of Bourbaki are not innovations themselves. As much as I love the books, they do not contain major new results, rather they are an excellent organisation of pre-existing knowledge, perhaps with some novel proofs.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Meh. Bourbaki is merely indicative... Someone who believes that only individuals can produce theorems hasn't really worked in mathematics.
It's a no true Scotsman argument.
I guess Terry Tao would be a good example of collaborative mathematics? He was mentioned in another thread and I noticed the following while reading his wiki page:
> Within the field of mathematics, Tao is known for his collaboration with Ben J. Green of Oxford University; together they proved the Green–Tao theorem. Known for his collaborative mindset, by 2006, Tao had worked with over 30 others in his discoveries,[15] reaching 68 co-authors by October 2015.