Timeline for What does the term "yoga" mean in mathematics?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 6, 2011 at 2:39 | vote | accept | Sridhar Ramesh | ||
| May 6, 2011 at 5:45 | |||||
| May 6, 2011 at 2:29 | comment | added | Chris Schommer-Pries | The online Merriam-Webster says one of the definitions of a yoga is a system of exercises and techniques for attaining bodily or mental control and well-being. I think it is not such a stretch for yoga in mathematics to mean a system of techniques for attaining mathematical control and well-being. I have certainly heard algebraic topologists use the term yoga to refer to all the tricks and games surrounding cohomology theories and the zoo of long exact sequences you get from them. | |
| May 6, 2011 at 1:48 | comment | added | Tom Goodwillie | I would say that it is related in a playful figurative way to the original meaning of "yoga". The suggestion is of an esoteric and powerful body of knowledge or technique that it is worthwhile to master. | |
| May 6, 2011 at 1:40 | comment | added | Todd Trimble | I'd never heard that, but you may well be right. I'd be interested to hear from mathematicians other than disciples of Grothendieck if they use the word, and how. I can well imagine -- have no idea if it's the case -- differential topologists speaking of "the yoga of cancellations and rearrangements of critical points in Morse theory" or something like that, thus referring to an already established body of techniques. Hopefully more people will weigh in... | |
| May 6, 2011 at 1:29 | comment | added | Lubin | My views are always parochial, but let me say: of course it has nothing to do with any proper meaning of the word "yoga". And it always seemed to me that to refer to an approach as a yoga was to say that there was a different philosophy or different approach or different viewpoint being applied than had been current up to that time. All of this applies, of course, to what happened when Grothendieck suddenly revolutionized algebraic geometry. | |
| May 6, 2011 at 1:23 | history | answered | Todd Trimble | CC BY-SA 3.0 |