May 8, 2015 01:31 AM
https://plus.maths.org/content/future-proof
EXCERPT: Are mathematicians ever going to be replaced by computers? If maths was all about routine calculations, then the answer would most definitely be yes. But if you've ever tried to come up with a mathematical proof, or even played with a logic puzzle, you know this involves intuition and leaps of imagination you'd think are beyond any computer. Even just deciding which kind of questions are mathematically interesting, and which are boring or beyond reach, seems to be something that needs human input.
Yet, humanity's role in the future of mathematical proof was being discussed at the British (Applied) Mathematics Colloquium last week, by a panel of people who know the territory very well: the mathematician (and Fields medallist) Tim Gowers, the historian of mathematics June Barrow-Green, computer scientists Andrew Pitts and Ursula Martin, and David Tranah representing Cambridge University Press, an important publisher of mathematics research....
EXCERPT: Are mathematicians ever going to be replaced by computers? If maths was all about routine calculations, then the answer would most definitely be yes. But if you've ever tried to come up with a mathematical proof, or even played with a logic puzzle, you know this involves intuition and leaps of imagination you'd think are beyond any computer. Even just deciding which kind of questions are mathematically interesting, and which are boring or beyond reach, seems to be something that needs human input.
Yet, humanity's role in the future of mathematical proof was being discussed at the British (Applied) Mathematics Colloquium last week, by a panel of people who know the territory very well: the mathematician (and Fields medallist) Tim Gowers, the historian of mathematics June Barrow-Green, computer scientists Andrew Pitts and Ursula Martin, and David Tranah representing Cambridge University Press, an important publisher of mathematics research....