Hi all,
I'm new here. I'm a mathematician (well theoretical comp sci) and a
radical. I've long wanted a history of radical mathematicians, so
that I could learn from their successes and failures about how to use
mathematics to help the radical agenda. (My personal main radical
interest is anti-war stuff.) I don't think such a history exists, so
I've been trying to put one together.
Does anyone here have any suggestions on people and organizations I
should look into for this project?
Here's two short examples of pretty awesome radical mathematicians:
1) Alexander Grothendieck helped develop a branch of math called
category theory in a way that some people describe as the "universal
theory of math." To protest the Vietnam war, he went to Hanoi while it
was being bombed and gave lectures on his work. He's still alive today
and lives as a hermit.
2) Emil Gumbel pioneered a branch of statistics that focuses on
extreme values. In the 1920s, he asserted that because the capitalist
economic system developed the discipline of statistics to record its
achievements, it was the duty of socialist statisticians to expose the
hidden figures that would provide the public with a thorough picture
of the unequal conditions wrought by capitalism. He was the center of
a huge scandal as the Nazis rose to power in Germany for exposing Nazi
political murders.
Thanks in advance,
Mike Izbicki
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