Timeline for Is the number of "breakthroughs" in mathematics decreasing, as it is claimed to be in other sciences?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 24, 2023 at 11:41 | comment | added | David A. Craven | @VladimirDotsenko I think the point was that the new academics were only hired because there was a bump in student numbers, and hence more academics were needed. As a by-product, the number of researchers therefore increased, so the amount of research increases. This explains why the sudden acceleration in the 60s tapered off, but does not explain why (if it is the case as in the graph in another answer), the totla output regressed to the mean. | |
| Jan 23, 2023 at 10:45 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Stefan Kohl♦ | ||
| Jan 23, 2023 at 8:51 | comment | added | AnoE | This answer would explain why a field of research would slow down, but not whether maths is doing that right now... | |
| Jan 23, 2023 at 8:32 | comment | added | Wilberd van der Kallen | I do not find this bizarre. But then I got a position at that time. With much more freedom than is customary nowadays. Yes, we also had to teach. Times do change. | |
| Jan 22, 2023 at 15:30 | comment | added | RBega2 | With the caveat that I'm skeptical of that what is being measured is an accurate reflection of "breakthroughs" but it seems perfectly plausible that having a greater number of academic positions would allow for more people to continue to contribute to research even if their "productivity" was not high or they were working in unfashionable areas. Yitang Zhang is a contemporary example. | |
| Jan 22, 2023 at 14:37 | comment | added | Vladimir Dotsenko | It is a very bizarre way of describe reality. Research positions usually come with teaching duties. I highly doubt that teaching positions with research duties often lead to breakthroughs. | |
| Jan 22, 2023 at 10:27 | history | answered | coudy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |