Making Sense of Modern Global Mathematics

In 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 that theory and practice, how modern societies collectively make powerful abstractions 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 new intercontinental scales. Using interdisciplinary methods to explore how theories, institutions, and infrastructures transformed in tandem, I will show how mathematicians’ uses of the term “sense” explain the changing natures of their abstractions and their discipline. I will then embed this story in a longer-running account of the epistemic and sensory relationships between materials, knowledge, and culture in modern societies, exemplified in the now-ubiquitous educational technology of the blackboard.

Michael J. Barany dreamed as a child of becoming a mathematician. As his studies progressed, he came to realize that examining how others create 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, conceptual, and technological foundations and implications of abstract knowledge in the modern world.