Related papers: Through a Glass Darkly
The purpose of this paper (which, in many passages, I take the liberty of writing in the first person singular for bringing a personal experience) is to show how teachers of Physics and Mathematics in Basic Education can teach, through a…
Algorithmic rankers have a profound impact on our increasingly data-driven society. From leisurely activities like the movies that we watch, the restaurants that we patronize; to highly consequential decisions, like making educational and…
A recent normative turn in computer science has brought concerns about fairness, bias, and accountability to the core of the field. Yet recent scholarship has warned that much of this technical work treats problematic features of the status…
We present an overview of how certain computational tools currently interact with mathematical practice, and reflect on the implications for research mathematics in the short to medium term, as the field navigates the emerging age of AI and…
Social learning is a powerful mechanism through which agents learn about the world from others. However, humans don't always choose to observe others, since social learning can carry time and cognitive resource costs. How do people balance…
We present a list of open questions in mathematical physics. After a historical introduction, a number of problems in a variety of different fields are discussed, with the intention of giving an overall impression of the current status of…
We make the case for mathematicians and statisticians to stake their claim in the fast-moving and high-impact research field that is becoming known as Future Cities. After assessing the Future Cities arena, we provide some illustrative…
The proliferation of artificial intelligence provides an opportunity to create psychological spaciousness in society. Spaciousness is defined as the ability to hold diverse interpersonal interactions and forms the basis for vulnerability…
According to Peter M. Blau [Exchange and Power in Social Life, Wiley and Sons, p. 43], the process of integration of a newly formed group has a paradoxical aspect: most attractive individuals are rejected because they raise fear of…
Logical reasoning is essential in a variety of human activities. A representative example of a logical task is mathematics. Recent large-scale models trained on large datasets have been successful in various fields, but their reasoning…
The topic of diversity is an interesting subject, both as a purely mathematical concept and also for its applications to important real-life situations. Unfortunately, although the meaning of diversity seems intuitively clear, no precise…
The fundamental role of mathematics as an inspiration for artists, but also as a tool for art creation, is presented in this paper following different art fields, like architecture, sculpture, painting, photography, literature and poetry,…
The unique and beautiful character of certain mathematical results and proofs is often considered one of the most gratifying aspects of engaging with mathematics. We study whether this perception of mathematical arguments having an…
I discuss some connotations of mathematical notion of "truth" in the context of humanistic discourse
The present paper presents some reflections of the author on divergent series and their role and place in mathematics over the centuries. The point of view presented here is limited to differential equations and dynamical systems.
Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) is unlocking transformative capabilities for mathematics. There is great hope that AI will help solve major open problems and autonomously discover new mathematical concepts. In this essay, we…
The maturation of cognition, from introspection to understanding others, has long been a hallmark of human development. This position paper posits that for AI systems to truly emulate or approach human-like interactions, especially within…
We investigate, at the fundamental level, the questions of `why', `when' and `how' one could or should reach out to poor and vulnerable people to support them in the absence of governmental institutions. We provide a simple and new approach…
Science is a fundamental human activity and we trust its results because it has several error-correcting mechanisms. Its is subject to experimental tests that are replicated by independent parts. Given the huge amount of information…
Glass is everywhere. We use and are surrounded by glass objects which make tangible the reality of glass as a distinct state of matter. Yet, glass as we know it is usually obtained by cooling a liquid sufficiently rapidly below its melting…