this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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From the wiki article :
Anybody have any idea what the ethical standards might be that he's referring to? Not sure if there's a scandal or something or just an overall sense of displeasure with the field.
I tried to google it and it’s not super clear.
-Perelman gets his phd in russia super young and is hired at NYU/SUNY
-Publishes some groundbreaking stuff on arxiv (a free site to post white papers in math and physics) in 2002/2003
-There is some drama with another scientist who is known for stealing people’s work trying to downplay Perelman’s contribution
-Perelman quits his US jobs and returns to russia to work in math (making wayyyyyyy less money), then quits that job too and becomes a recluse
-Turns down fields medal and millennium prize (1M dollars for solving)
-Says some mathematicians are unethical but the rest of them tolerate it so they’re shit too so the whole thing is shit. Also says he doesn’t want to be put in a zoo or treated like a pet about it.
—
I’m going to go ahead and assume I don’t understand enough about being a math superstar to understand where he’s coming from, but he certainly sounds like a principled guy and now I respect him.
I mean math is the backbone of science and technology. And technology can lead to fucked up things.
Nuclear bombs wouldn’t be possible without fairly recent math.
Not to mention the unethical hell that is the whole financial sector / trader type where mathematicians often end up working.
And finally these days, by making new discoveries in some fields your directly contributing to the growth of AI and LLMs.
An infamous example of someone who quit math over ethical concerns (ironic given the rest of the story) is Ted Kacyznski (the unabomber), who saw math as leading to more and more advanced technology which oppresses people and destroys nature.
I think his issues more stemmed from academia and the rat race within it, not so much the ethical issues of mathematics and what they can lead to. Just shitty crabs trying to escape the bucket.
When you're just crabs in a bucket, be the sea slug that got dredged up with the rest.
....and a beautiful sea slug too