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SUMMARY:Making Sense of Modern Global Mathematics
DTSTART:20180531T101500
DTEND:20180531T110000
DTSTAMP:20260506T165922Z
UID:5afa9e423d3a23b82c420add2832540a49eadd1b0eeeb77ba7cff07e
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Michael J. Barany\, Dartmouth College\nIn theory\, mathematics
  is timeless and universal: 2 and 2 make 4 wherever you go\, whomever you 
 ask—always have\, always will. In practice\, it is almost the opposite: 
 mathematical knowledge depends integrally on where and how it is shared\, 
 by whom\, with what media\, in which contexts. I study the gap between tha
 t theory and practice\, how modern societies collectively make powerful ab
 stractions that both seem universal and depend deeply on context. My talk 
 will focus on a pivotal change that redefined mathematical research in the
  mid-twentieth century\, bringing it to new places and connecting it at ne
 w intercontinental scales. Using interdisciplinary methods to explore how 
 theories\, institutions\, and infrastructures transformed in tandem\, I wi
 ll show how mathematicians’ uses of the term “sense” explain the cha
 nging natures of their abstractions and their discipline. I will then embe
 d this story in a longer-running account of the epistemic and sensory rela
 tionships between materials\, knowledge\, and culture in modern societies\
 , exemplified in the now-ubiquitous educational technology of the blackboa
 rd.\n\nMichael J. Barany dreamed as a child of becoming a mathematician. A
 s his studies progressed\, he came to realize that examining how others cr
 eate and use mathematics could be even more fascinating than creating and 
 using mathematics of his own. His interdisciplinary research\, teaching\, 
 and public engagement explore and explain the social\, political\, concept
 ual\, and technological foundations and implications of abstract knowledge
  in the modern world.\n \n 
LOCATION:BC 420 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==BC%20420
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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