Ideas and discoveries: limitless, not limited
August 29, 2006 by Mary Wynne-Wynter
It happens to me all the time. I read an article that stops me dead in tracks and then I think of another that somehow 'fits' with the first and I have to backtrack and hunt for it.
Why these two? As a society, we've adopted a belief system around scarcity - that "its all been done before". I read these and the insanity of holding such a belief, a world view even, hit me with tremendous force.
Here's the first.
Ideas & Trends: The Math Was Complex, the Intentions, Strikingly Simple: "When Grigory Perelman refused to accept the Fields Medal, he was rejecting the idea that the discoverer is more important than the discovery."
A purist would say that no one person deserves to stake a claim on a theorem. That seemed to be what Dr. Perelman, who has said he disapproves of politics in mathematics, was implying. “If anybody is interested in my way of solving the problem, it’s all there — let them go and read about it,” he told The Telegraph. “I have published all my calculations. This is what I can offer the public.”
(Via NYT > Science.)
Here's the other.
By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News
US astronomers say they have found the first direct evidence for the mysterious stuff called dark matter. Dark matter - which does not emit or reflect enough light to be "seen" - is thought to make up 25% of the Universe. By contrast, the ordinary matter we can see is believed to make up no more than about 5% of our Universe.