Questions tagged [sociology-of-math]

For questions about the interplay between mathematics and the social context in which it is done.

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6 votes
5 answers
2k views

Standard models of N and R: An Alice/Bob approach

This is a question about a comment in a recent publication by Roman Kossak. Kossak wrote: "Nonstandardness in set theory has a different nature. In arithmetic, there is one intended object of ...
Mikhail Katz's user avatar
  • 15.1k
2 votes
3 answers
968 views

What's a wrong proof? [closed]

Update: I edited the question as I saw it was closed. Let's see if with some improvements it can be considered worth reopening... (I already accepted an answer, but I'd like to see something more ...
Alessandro Della Corte's user avatar
40 votes
5 answers
7k views

Is the number of "breakthroughs" in mathematics decreasing, as it is claimed to be in other sciences?

Is the number of "breakthroughs" in mathematics decreasing, as it is claimed to be in other sciences? Background for the question: Park, M., Leahey, E. & Funk, R.J. Papers and patents ...
12 votes
4 answers
2k views

How about a statement without proof?

Consider a statement without proof in a paper, with the following assumptions: it is unknown, it is unused in the paper, it is not written as a theorem (or proposition, or lemma…), but just a free ...
Sebastien Palcoux's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
298 views

Examples of discoveries that began on (maybe obscure) low impact journals but eventually climbed up to (the mainstream) high impact journals

Let me begin with a short introduction. We, professional mathematicians, know that there are many types of journals and sometimes feel that some of them are a bit of spam (it is even common to receive ...
13 votes
1 answer
2k views

Mathematical fictionalism

Have there been any successful mathematicians that also happen to be mathematical fictionalists? Let's say success is defined by at least one article published in a non-pay journal. I ask because ...
53 votes
10 answers
7k views

Changes forced by the pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our work-lives in ways few of us could have anticipated. These exceptional circumstances have forced each one of us and each one of our institutions to adapt, ...
10 votes
2 answers
1k views

How professional mathematicians deal with discouragement? [closed]

All professional mathematicians feel discouraged occasionally due to some issue. My question is: How do professional mathematicians deal with discouragement? In this link , Andrew Wiles say ...
7 votes
1 answer
1k views

Do mathematicians use notebooks to keep their results these days? [closed]

Mathematicians work a lot and are usually inspired by many things. In their lifetimes they get to publish only portions of their results. There have been stories of how Gauss, Euler, Ramanujan, ...
16 votes
7 answers
5k views

Learning mathematics in an "independent and idiosyncratic" way

This is a question about learning mathematics outside of the standard undergraduate/graduate education. The following is a quote from Thurston's On Proof and Progress in Mathematics: My mathematical ...
70 votes
22 answers
10k views

Small ideas that became big

I am looking for ideas that began as small and maybe naïve or weak in some obscure and not very known paper, school or book but at some point in history turned into big powerful tools in research ...
0 votes
1 answer
740 views

Is it all right to invite a professor to cowrite a paper

I managed to improve the techniques of a year-old paper to get a significantly stronger result. I used original ideas, but a large part relies upon results of the original paper. (to the point that ...
29 votes
6 answers
4k views

What's "geometric algebra"?

Sometimes one bumps into the name "geometric algebra" (henceforth "GA"), in the sense of this Wikipedia article. Other names appear in that context such as "vector manifold", "pseudoscalar", and "...
Qfwfq's user avatar
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62 votes
68 answers
15k views

Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and “very applied” achievements

Gödel had a cosmological model. Hamel, primarily a mechanician, gave any vector space a basis. Plücker, best known for line geometry, spent years on magnetism. What other mathematicians had so distant ...
13 votes
5 answers
853 views

Mathematical words outside of mathematics [closed]

We've all heard expressions like "We need to factor this into the equation," where mathematical words have broader meanings than strictly mathematical. I'd like to develop a collection of such usages. ...
1 vote
0 answers
545 views

Does a result remain known after everyone who knew it has died? [closed]

When working on a research project, one tries to spend their time answering questions that have not yet been answered. There enters the terminology of "known" versus "unknown" results, which we ...
22 votes
1 answer
2k views

What is known about the common knowledge of mathematicians outside their field?

When giving a talk or writing a paper intended for non-specialist (i.e., mathematicians not specializing in the topic being discussed), the question inevitably occurs of what one can assume to be "...
4 votes
0 answers
341 views

Understand the publishing process time [closed]

Like a lot of beginner mathematicians (I guess), I'm worried about the publishing process time. In order to better understand that, I have a series of small questions (answers expected in average). ...
Sebastien Palcoux's user avatar
36 votes
3 answers
6k views

How many quit mathematics because they (are afraid that they) can not find a permanent job?

I think it is an important question, which frequently appears in discussions. Do you know any surveys which approach it? What are the reasons for people with completed PhD in mathematics to quit it? ...
46 votes
5 answers
8k views

Mathematicians with aphantasia (inability to visualize things in one's mind)

Are there any mathematicians with aphantasia? If so, could they please elaborate upon what their experience with mathematics is like? I realize that this question probably falls outside of the scope ...
121 votes
41 answers
28k views

What are some very important papers published in non-top journals?

There has already been a question about important papers that were initially rejected. Many of the answers were very interesting. The question is here. My concern in this question is slightly ...
54 votes
6 answers
15k views

Publication rates in Mathematics

Have there been any studies of publication rates in Mathematics? We are trying to construct a workload model for the Faculty of Science and Engineering at my institution. Part of this involves ...
53 votes
9 answers
11k views

How does a mathematician choose on which problem to work?

Main question: How does a mathematician choose on which problem to work? An example approach to framing one's answer: What is a mathematical problem - big or small - that you solved or are ...
29 votes
5 answers
2k views

The unpublished papers in reference to the published papers

Sometimes it happens that a published paper refers to an unpublished paper for a result used. In this case, if we want to check this result by ourselves, we need to access to this unpublished paper. ...
2 votes
3 answers
1k views

The Hidden Aspect of Set Theory [closed]

This question is inspired by a similar question at the beginning of Kunen's new book, "Set Theory". Many mathematicians believe they are exploring a "real" universe. In such a Platonic point of view ...
user50006's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
286 views

Submitting lecture purposal to conferences. (lecture about a thesis) [closed]

I wish to consult with you about something: I have recently given a lecture about my master's Thesis in a local conference organized by my advisor. The subject had a lot to do with algebraic geometry ...
MathGuy's user avatar
  • 19
76 votes
6 answers
3k views

Math Annotate Platform?

Suppose most mathematical research papers were freely accessible online. Suppose a well-organized platform existed where responsible users could write comments on any paper (linking to its doi, ...
36 votes
14 answers
2k views

Discovering and selecting conferences

Last summer, there were several excellent summer schools in my field that I learned of only after the application date. The events I did attend were chosen without too much care. I'm planning for the ...
31 votes
4 answers
3k views

Who uses keywords (and how)?

Almost all journals ask for keywords and most authors comply. Does any math researcher out there actually use them to search? Are there mechanisms to do that? I just wrote to someone that I assumed ...
69 votes
9 answers
11k views

When have we lost a body of mathematics because errors were found?

The history of mathematics over the last 200 years has many occasions when the fundamental assumptions of an area have been shown to be flawed, or even wrong. Yet I cannot think of any examples where, ...
28 votes
6 answers
2k views

Means of Promoting Mathematics in Young Countries!

We all know mathematics is life, this question is for Mankind. It's mathoverflow here when some parts of the world we have mathunderflow! I think we can do something through ideas. A similar ...
21 votes
4 answers
3k views

Unmathematical habits of thought and action which would be of use to mathematicians

In Question 74707, we ask what mathematical habits of thoughts are useful in other areas. It seems only fair to ask also what we can learn from them. It is also fair to ask what they should not learn ...
108 votes
20 answers
18k views

Mathematical habits of thought and action which would be of use to non-mathematicians

Once again I come to MO for help with something I'm writing for the public. Which habits of mathematicians -- aspects of the way we approach problems, the way we argue, the way we function as a ...
12 votes
44 answers
5k views

Mathematical ideas named after places [closed]

This question is quite unimportant, so feel free to close if you think it is inappropriate. I've been thinking about how mathematicians come up with names for the ideas/objects they study, and how ...
30 votes
14 answers
2k views

Webpages for specialized communities

First, my apology for this soft question. My excuse was that I really think this may be of interest to the community. I would understand if it gets closed (I have advocated closing some soft questions ...
6 votes
2 answers
983 views

In general... (convention in mathematical papers)

I often see in papers something like: 1) This is in general not true or 2) This is not true in general Which I personally would consider to be written formally as something like 1) $\forall x:...
6 votes
1 answer
682 views

Collaboration graph

Does anyone know a tool for drawing collaboratation graphs? To be more specific, when you enter a new field (subfields) you would like to know who is who in this subfield which publications are ...
Piotr Miłoś's user avatar
123 votes
15 answers
18k views

When and how is it appropriate for an undergraduate to email a professor out of the blue?

This may not be appropriate for MathOverflow, as I haven't seen precedent for this type of question. But the answer is certainly of interest to me, and (I think) would be of interest to many other ...
11 votes
0 answers
2k views

How connected are you? [closed]

I apologize if this question seems frivolous, but the motivation for it is quite serious. When I encounter the endless topic of the 'relevance' of mathematics, I am rather fond of referring to a ...
117 votes
13 answers
14k views

How do I fix someone's published error?

Paper A is in the literature, and has been for more than a decade. An error is discovered in paper A and is substantial in that many details are affected, although certain fundamental properties ...
5 votes
7 answers
2k views

Working in groups vs. alone: present vs. past

Why, at least as it seems to me, in past centuries mathematicians worked alone, while currently most of them work in pairs/groups? Reasons might be rooted in Mathematics, or Sociology, and so on..
76 votes
10 answers
11k views

Least collaborative mathematician

The recent question about the most prolific collaboration interested me. How about this question in the opposite direction, then: can anyone beat, amongst contemporary mathematicians, the example of ...
16 votes
8 answers
4k views

Which pair of mathematicians has the most joint papers?

I was searching on MathSciNet recently for a certain paper by two mathematicians. As I often do, I just typed in the names of the two authors, figuring that would give me a short enough list. My ...
36 votes
4 answers
10k views

Do actual Sudoku puzzles have a unique rational solution?

Here is a question in the intersection of mathematics and sociology. There is a standard way to encode a Sudoku puzzle as an integer programming problem. The problem has a 0-1-valued variable $a_{i,...
Greg Kuperberg's user avatar
19 votes
3 answers
1k views

What proportion of math papers are collaborative?

In this 2005 Notices article, Jerold Grossman tracks the proportion of papers in Math Reviews with 1, 2, 3, and >3 authors over time. His data set ends in 1999. I seem to recall reading that in 200k,...
JSE's user avatar
  • 19.1k