Dantzig on pure and applied mathematics

George Bernard Dantzig, the “father” of Linear Programming, on pure and nonpure Mathematics:

I think of modern mathematicians as a distinct race characterized by their non-interest in applications. From a historical point of view mathematicians before, let us say, 1820 were very closely tied to physics–or, in the case of probability theory, to gambling. For the past 150 years, however, mathematicians have created their own abstractions and followed the mathematical fads that happen to be in fashion. The fact that there is a whole world of exciting new mathematics out there in such fields as Operations Research, Computer Science, Optimization Theory has not excited their interest. I for one have no interest in trying to re-educate them–it would be a hopeless task. The most we can hope for is that they can be educated to the point that they don’t prejudice gifted students too much against that wonderful world of mathematics that goes by different names. (…) Students are being brainwashed into thinking that pure mathematics is in some way purer than other forms of mathematics. I have never been able to tell the difference between the so-called pure and the nonpure and don’t believe that there’s any. Just because my mathematics has its origins in a real problem doesn’t make it less interesting to me–just the other way round, I find it makes the puzzle I am working on all the more exciting. I get satisfaction out of knowing that I’m working on a relevant problem.

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Source:

An Interview with George B. Dantzig: The Father of Linear Programming, The College Mathematics Journal, Vol. 17, No. 4, September 1986.

Those empty, foolish dreams!

A sobering passage from Dostoevsky’s White Nights (Белые ночи):

Чувствуешь, что она наконец устает, истощается в вечном напряжении, эта неистощимая фантазия, потому что ведь мужаешь, выживаешь из прежних своих идеалов: они разбиваются в пыль, в обломки; если ж нет другой жизни, так приходится строить ее из этих же обломков. А между тем чего-то другого просит и хочет душа! И напрасно мечтатель роется, как в золе, в своих старых мечтаниях, ища в этой золе хоть какой-нибудь искорки, чтоб раздуть ее, возобновленным огнем пригреть похолодевшее сердце и воскресить в нем снова все, что было прежде так мило, что трогало душу, что кипятило кровь, что вырывало слезы из глаз и так роскошно обманывало! Знаете ли, Настенька, до чего я дошел? знаете ли, что я уже принужден справлять годовщину своих ощущений, годовщину того, что было прежде так мило, чего в сущности никогда не бывало, – потому что эта годовщина справляется все по тем же глупым, бесплотным мечтаниям, – и делать это, потому что и этих-то глупых мечтаний нет, затем, что нечем их выжить: ведь и мечты выживаются!

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A possible translation:

For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And meanwhile your soul is all the time craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him! Do you realise, Nastenka, how far things have gone with me? Do you know that I’m forced now to celebrate the anniversary of my own sensations, the anniversary of that which was once so dear to me, but which never really existed? For I keep this anniversary in memory of those empty, foolish dreams! I keep it because even those foolish dreams are no longer there, because I have nothing left with which to replace them, for even dreams, Nastenka, have to be replaced by something!

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Source:

Федор Михайлович Достоевский, Белые ночи, 1848.