Re:Fields Medals 2022
by peterweyand0 on Wednesday July 06, 2022 @02:18AM
(#31997388)
Can anyone give a little insight into how some of these discoveries can have engineering applications? There are some abstracts, but has anyone looked at this and seen potential uses in computer science? I'm surprised there aren't more comments on this on Hacker News considering it's the Fields Medal.
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> I'm surprised there aren't more comments on this on Hacker News considering it's the Fields Medal.
Many would argue that looking for engineering applications in mathematics is not why mathematicians do mathematics. That mathematics does sometimes have engineering applications is a mysterious and beautiful side effect. It isn't the motivation behind doing mathematics.
Indeed, a possibly apocryphal tale holds that matrix algebra, while a beautiful mathematical construct, was considered by its inventor to be utterly useless. We know better today.
Re:Fields Medals 2022
by peterweyand0 on Wednesday July 06, 2022 @08:49AM
(#32000064)
Oh I know. I just thought that more people would be excited about this and maybe point out where engineering applications might be possible if at all.
One of the winners says that there are no concrete applications, but that some of the tools developed ("interpolation formulas") could potentially be useful for solving differential equations and signal processing, but doesn't go into detail.