These kinds of unplanned impacts are one reason why I think most jobs need to have a certain amount of "slack" built in so that the workers aren't only spending all their time working, but can spend some time pondering ways that they could be doing it better or even just relaxing and reading a book etc.<p>You can't predict what avenues of investigation are going to bear fruit, so a good strategy it to encourage people to investigate things that interest them. Most of the time it won't lead anywhere, but once in a while someone will stumble upon penicillin or a microwave oven.
> In the 1970s, Lang developed a modem with 8-dimensional signals, using E8 packing. This helped to open up the Internet, as data could be sent over the phone, instead of relying on specifically designed cables. Not everyone was thrilled. Donald Coxeter, who had helped Lang understand the mathematics, said he was “appalled that his beautiful theories had been sullied in this way”.<p>Sic semper mathēmaticīs.
Not included in the article: Boolean algebra, invented by an English philosopher in the 1840s, and applied to a new context almost 100 years later in what may be the most influential MS thesis of all time, Claude Shannon's "Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits".
The article is interesting, but I feel somewhat conflicted re "explaining motivations behind scientific discoveries". The author of the article is trying hard to find simple and elegant examples of applications (eg the optimal orange stacking in a grocery store), but imho makes a disservice, as mathematics ends up looking like a walk in the park taken by complete lunatics that were carried away thinking about stacked oranges. When I was a kid, there were some science fair-esq events / electives for high school kids including sections on mathematics. By stripping off all the mind-twisting weirdness and complexity of the real math to make problems "more approachable" to students, they also stripped them of all the mystery and a sense of discovery that I self-discovered and fell in love with much later during my undergrad.<p>Tdlr if we want to get people excited about math, we should not strive to erase all the complexity and ambiguity, making it fully digestible, because otherwise all that's left are a bunch of lunatics arguing over stacking oranges (prove me wrong).
These are fun anecdotes, but I can't help but notice the egocentrism of Juan Parrondo calling out <i>his own work</i> as having historical impact and noting two terms named after himself in the same paragraph.<p>Sometimes I wish I had a little more of that self-important energy.
I’m working on a project now where we have to take the topics in algebra 1/2 and geometry (high school mathematics) and connect it to real-world activities in science, tech, business, etc.<p>This has been fun — but harder than anticipated! While some topics are clearly and deeply useful, many topics are very difficult to connect to practicalities. And, conversely, some of my favorite math — math that underpins key technologies we use everyday —just isn’t part of the high school curriculum.<p>It makes me wonder why we teach the high school math that we do— and whether there is a more elegant or effective curriculum we should consider. (For instance, I’m fond of the classical quadrivium)
The Unplanned Impact of Mathematics is a great illustration of the mathematical nature of the world.<p>This is a fascinating relationship, is there a definitive answer / theory on this ? Why are Mathematics so effective to describe the world ? Are Mathematics a feature of the Universe or merely a Human tool ?<p>I haven't been reading on the subject for quite some time, what are good books on this relationship between Mathematics and Nature?
is the eternal (apparent) dichotomy between pure and applied science, canot be said in advance what is egg and what is chicken between the (quite) uncountables branches of knowledge..
an easy to read book for the mathematically inclined minds by Eric Temple Bell: "Mathematics, The Queen & Servant of Science"<p>and the xkcd.com notation 135: <a href="https://xkcd.com/435/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/435/</a>