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A comment on A prophet will arise in CS. Parent comment

Re:A prophet will arise in CS by mquander on Monday May 09, 2011 @03:41PM (#2529926)
OK, but has there ever been a "prophet" of any field of mathematics who sparked people's interest like Hawking or Sagan? (I disagree that Feynman had this impact.) I don't think there has been and I don't think that there will be until we all get to the Singularity.

It's a lot easier to get someone interested in something that they can look up at in the sky than something which is totally abstract.

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Re:A prophet will arise in CS by eru on Monday May 09, 2011 @04:25PM (#2530071)
Chaos and fractals lead to some (superficial) interest in mathematics for some time. And they are totally abstract.
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Re:A prophet will arise in CS by hugh3 on Monday May 09, 2011 @05:32PM (#2530294)
You're right, the general public can be persuaded to get interested in anything that involves pretty pictures.

This is part of the reason I switched from studying semiconductor physics to giant planets. Much prettier pictures on my slides, nowadays.

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