Dr. Dobb's Journal July 2002
Leave it to the collective creative genius of Hollywood. After bankrupting the beauty of crashing cars, flying bullets, and steamy sex, the entertainment industry, at a loss over what to sully next, decided to turn math majors into rock stars. Granted, A Beautiful Mind, the semibiographical movie of mathematical genius John Forbes Nash, Jr. (based on Sylvia Nazar's wonderful book of the same name) is a decent yarn. Still, you have to admit Russell Crowe is no John Forbes Nash, Jr. (and vice versa, of course). Nevertheless, anything that raises the awareness of mathematics is a good thing.
What with budget cuts in education (as much as $10 billion nationwide this year alone), a corresponding drop in the number of mathematics degrees (down another 12 percent between 1995 and 2000), and never-ending controversies over standardized testing and math scores, mathematicians haven't had a lot to crow about. And even as members of Congress, like Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), spout off that "a sound math and science education is vital to the success of this nation," funding for mathematics and science research remains "anemic," at least according to Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Science.
To that end, Boehlert pushed the National Mathematics and Science Partnership (H.R. 1858) and National Science Education Acts (H.R. 100) through the House of Representatives last year. Both plans are designed to bolster math and science education. The National Mathematics and Science Partnership Act sets aside $1.5 billion for National Science Foundation (NSF) programs for math, science, and technology proficiency for elementary and secondary school teachers. Additionally, the National Science Education Act authorizes $181 million for universities to recruit and train elementary school math and science teachers.
Both pieces of legislation have been referred to the Senate for consideration, where Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has introduced a companion proposal (S.1262). Rockefeller's approach allocates $200 million a year for universities to establish partnerships with educational agencies and businesses to provide K-12 students access to technology and research, $15 million for math and science teachers to do research and improve classroom performance, and $20 million to expand the NSF's Internet-based National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Library.
Boehlert and Rockefeller aren't alone in spotlighting math and science. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), for instance, has introduced the Technology Talent Bill (S.1549) to increase the number of U.S. scientists and engineers. Why? Because even Congress realizes that, as the bill's cosponsor Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) said, "the sciences are critical to America's economic success." Initially, Lieberman's bill called for a $25 million NSF pilot program, which would grow to $200 million. Alas, the White House slashed the program from $25 million to $2 million, even as Boehlert plans to introduce a House companion Technology Talent Bill. In the meantime, no one seems to have any idea when (or even if) any of these proposals will get a chance to become law.
Luckily, we don't have to rely upon the government as the sole mover of mathematics and science, since privately funded organizations are trying to pick up the slack. The Clay Mathematics Institute (http://www.claymath.org/), for instance, is a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to fostering and sharing mathematical knowledge. The brainchild of Boston businessman and math groupie Landon T. Clay, the Institute "attempts to further the beauty, the power, and the universality of mathematical thought."
Foremost among the Institute's mechanisms for implementing this vision are seven "Millennium Prize Problems" — P versus NP, the Hodge Conjecture, the Poincari Conjecture, the Riemann Hypothesis, Yang-Mills Existence and Mass Gap, Navier-Stokes Existence and Smoothness, and the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture — which have resisted solution over the years. Putting its money where its mouth is, the Institute has established a $7 million prize fund for solving these problems — $1 million per problem.
Up to now, no proposed solution to any single problem has come close to claiming a prize. However, Martin Dunwoody, a professor at Southampton University (http://www.maths.soton.ac.uk/staff/Dunwoody/), has taken a run at the Poincari Conjecture, which deals with properties in three-dimensional space. According to Arthur Jaffe, president of the Institute, Dunwoody's approach may be the "first serious effort on any of our seven problems." To the consternation of math purists, Dunwoody first presented his work on the Internet, rather than the staid confines of academic conferences. Based on feedback, Dunwoody has already begun revising his preliminary work.
Putting Poincari aside, the real problem we face is in figuring out who's going to play Dunwoody in the movie version of his story. As a native New Zealander, Russell Crowe would have little trouble with Dunwoody's accent, but hey — been there, done that. Based on his performance in Good Will Hunting, you'd think Matt Damon would have the math part down. And then there's John Malkovich, who clearly has the shiny outside head part down — it's the inside of John Malkovich that worries me. Jeez. And Professor Dunwoody just thought he'd tackled a hard problem.
Jonathan Erickson
editor-in-chief
jerickson@ddj.com