Wednesday 23 January 2013

mathematics and nobel

 "The universe cannot be read until we have learned the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth."
           The same was told by Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564-January 8, 1642was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. A German mathematician and physical scientist who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy(a branch of earth sciences) named as Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss(April 30, 1777-February 23, 1855) referred to Mathematics as 'the Queen of all the sciences'. No wonder, as there is hardly any branch of knowledge devoid of mathematics. From a cattle census to satellite-imaging technology, everything flourishes in the courtyard of mathematics. This omnipresence of mathematics was not alien to the ancient people who lived on the river banks of the Saraswati and the Sindhu. They expressed it in beautiful language. The Vedangajyotisam states:

Yatha sikha mayuranam 
Naganam manayo yatha, 
Tadvad vedangasastranam 
Ganitam murdhani sthitam.

   "Like the crowning crest of a peacock and the shining gem in the cobra‚s hood, mathematics is the supreme Vedanga Sastra" There are six Vedanga Sastras viz. Siksa (phonetics), Niruktam (etymology), Vyakaranam (grammar), Chandas (prosody), Kalpam (ritualistics) and Ganitam (mathematics).
Ironically there is no Nobel prize in Mathematics.

     Nobel prizes were created by the will of Sir Alfred Bernhard Nobel(21 october 1833-10 december 1896), a notable Swedish chemist, industrialist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer.  On November 27, 1895, he signed his last will in Paris. He was the inventor of dynamite. In 1863 Swedish industrialist he invented the Nobel patent detonator used with dynamite and nitroglycerin. Nitroglycerin is an explosive compound formed by the combination of glycerol and nitric and sulfuric acids.  He is credited with 355 patents. One of the most common -and unfounded- reasons as to why Nobel decided against a Nobel prize in math is that a woman he proposed to/his wife/his mistress rejected him because of/cheated him with. A famous mathematician Magnus Gustaf (Gosta) Mittag-Leffler (16 March 1846 – 7 July 1927) is often claimed to be the guilty party.There is no historical evidence to support the story.For one, Mr. Nobel was never married.There are more credible reasons as to why there is no Nobel prize in math. Chiefly among them is simply the fact he didn't care much for Mathematics, and that it was not considered a practical science from which humanity could benefit (a chief purpose for creating the Nobel Foundation). Further, at the time there existed already a well known Scandinavian prize for mathematicians. If Nobel knew about this prize he may have felt less compelled to add a competing prize for mathematicians in his will. As professor ordinarius in Stockholm, Mittag-Leffler began a 30-year career of vigorous mathematical activity. In 1882 he founded the Acta Mathematica, which a century later is still one of the world's leading mathematical journals. Through his influence in Stockholm he persuaded King Oscar II (last crowned swedish king from 1872 until his death and King of Norway from 1872 until 1905) to endow prize competitions and honor various distinguished mathematicians all over Europe. French mathematician Charles Hermite (December 24, 1822 – January 14, 1901), Joseph LouisFrancois Bertrand (March 11, 1822 – April 5, 1900), Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass ( 31 October 1815 – 19 February 1897) German mathematician  who is often cited as the "father of modern analysis", and Jules Henri Poincare (April 29, 1854-July 17, 1912) were among those honored by the King.
     Here are some relevant facts:
   Nobel never married, hence no ``wife''. Nobel's third and longest-lasting relationship was with Sofie Hess who was from Vienna, whom he met in 1876. She was a lower class store clerk who was quite handsome, but irresponsible. The liaison lasted for 18 years until she got pregnant by another man. The romance was a sad one for Nobel who always hoped like a “Pygmalion”. But she had nothing to do with any mathematician: the story of a jealous Nobel is simply a legend. Leffler was an important mathematician in Sweden in the late 19th-early 20th century. His mathematical contributions are connected chiefly with the theory of functions. He was born in Stockholm, the eldest son of the school principal John Olof Leffler (29 june 1813-16 july 1884) and Gustava Wilhelmina Mittag; he later added his mother's maiden name 'mittag' to his paternal surname. His sister was the writer Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler (October 1, 1849 - October 21, 1892). He matriculated at Uppsala University in 1865, completed his Ph.D. in 1872 and became docent at the university the same year. He was also curator (chairman) of the Stockholms nation (1872–1873). He next traveled to Paris, Göttingen and Berlin, studying under Weierstrass in the latter place. He then took up a position as professor of mathematics at the University of Helsinki 1877–1881 and then as the first professor of mathematics at the University College of Stockholm (the later Stockholm University); he was president of the college 1891-1892 and retired from his chair in 1911. Mittag-Leffler went into business and became a successful businessman in his own right, but an economic collapse in Europe wiped out his fortune in 1922.He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1883), the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters (1878, later honorary member), the Royal Swedish Society of Sciences in Uppsala, the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund (1906) and about 30 foreign learned societies, including the Royal Society of London (1896) and Académie des sciences in Paris. He held honorary doctorates from the University of Oxfordand several other universities.Mittag-Leffler was a convinced advocate of women's rights and was instrumental in making Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (January 15, 1850-February 10, 1891) a full professor of mathematics in Stockholm - the first woman anywhere in the world to hold that position. She was the first major Russian female mathematician, responsible for important original contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics. Mittag-Leffler founded the mathematical journal Acta Mathematica (1882), with the help of King Oscar's sponsorship, and partly paid for with the fortune of his wife Signe Lindfors (1861–1921), the daughter of major general Julius af. Lindfors (1831–1903),  who came from a very wealthy Finnish family. They had met while Mittag-Leffler was living in Helsinki and  the couple married in 1882. A legend that Alfred Nobel did not set up a prize in Mathematics because of a thwarted affair with Signe Lindfors is not supported by historical evidence.He collected a large mathematical library in his villa in the Stockholm suburb of Djursholm. The house and its contents was donated to the Academy of Sciences as the Mittag-Leffler Institute. However, it seems highly unlikely that he would have been a leading candidate for an early Nobel Prize in mathematics, had there been one - there were guys like Poincare and German mathematician David Hilbert (January 23, 1862 – February 14, 1943) around, after all.There is no evidence that Mittag-Leffler had much contact with Alfred Nobel (who resided in Paris during the latter part of his life), still less that there was animosity between them for whatever reason. A final speculation concerning the psychological element. Would Nobel, sitting down to draw up his testament, presumably in a mood of great benevolence to mankind, have allowed a mere personal grudge to distort his idealistic plans for the monument he would leave behind? Nobel, an inventor and industrialist, did not create a prize in mathematics simply because he was not particularly interested in mathematics or theoretical science. His will speaks of prizes for those ``inventions or discoveries'' of greatest practical benefit to mankind. Probably as a result of this language, the physics prize has been awarded for experimental work much more often than for advances in theory. However, the story of some rivalry over a woman is obviously much more amusing, and that's why it will probably continue to be repeated.
          Although there is no Nobel Prize for mathematics, many mathematicians win the Nobel Prize, often in fields that rely heavily on mathematics, such as physics and economics.
1950: Bertrand Russell (literature)

1954: Max Born, Walther Bothe (physics)
1972: Kenneth Arrow (economics)
1975: Leonid Kantorovich (economics)
1994: John Forbes Nash (economics)
2003: Clive W. J. Granger (economics)
2005: Robert J. Autmann, Thomas C. Schelling (economics)
2007: Roger Myerson and Eric Maskin (economist)
Several prizes are awarded periodically for outstanding mathematical achievement. These are Field's medal, Abel Prize, Rolf Nevanlinna Prize, and Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize & Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize etc.

Whatever it may be, Mathematics is the basic language of all natural sciences and all modern technology. 

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