THE HINDU

Online edition of India's National Newspaper

Saturday, Aug 21, 2010
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Opinion - Editorials

The importance of mathematics

The fields of work of the seven recipients of the four high global awards at the ongoing International
Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) at Hyderabad are indicative of the fast-disappearing boundaries
between pure and applied mathematics. The field of mathematics has evolved tremendously since
the great G.H. Hardy proclaimed in A Mathematician's Apology that it was the very fact that pure
mathematics had no practical applications that made it beautiful and of permanent aesthetic value
— as against applied mathematics, which was dull and trivial. It was for the same reason that
mathematics did not enter Alfred Nobel's mind when he established the Nobel Prize primarily to
honour inventions and discoveries of great practical benefit to humanity. The Fields Medal, the most
important of the mathematics awards and regarded as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize, is
traditionally given for exemplary achievement like solving an outstanding problem of great
significance in pure mathematics. In recent years, this too has begun to recognise mathematical
achievements in problems arising in physics and other subjects. This is very much in evidence in
this year's awards.

The institution by the International Mathematical Union of awards other than the Fields Medal to
recognise significant mathematical achievements in information theory and other technologically
important areas is yet another indicator of the increasing relevance of mathematics to diverse fields.
The Rolf Nevalninna Prize and the Gauss Prize this year have honoured improved error-correcting
codes in communications, which have applications in high speed modems, and the mathematical
theory of wavelets, which has resulted in efficient data compression in imaging technologies with
applications in digital movies and space-based astronomy. Public-key encryption, which is widely
used in data security, is rooted firmly in number theory, Hardy's field of specialisation, which he
said was beautiful but of little practical value. Recent developments in theoretical computer science,
financial mathematics, and derivative pricing are examples of important emerging applications in
mathematics. Indeed, some very important talks in the Hyderabad Congress are in areas of pure
mathematics inspired by problems in applied mathematics. It is this wonderful duality of
mathematics — the joy of pursuit of pure mathematics for its intrinsic aesthetic experience, and its
increasing relevance to real-life problems — that must be projected in greater measure to school
and college students. It must become an essential component of mathematics education to promote
the idea that successful careers are possible through the pursuit of mathematics.