Public lecture and book signing: Prof. Michael Harris
Mathematics without
Apologies:
Portrait of a
Problematic Vocation
Friday, November 20, 2015 – 5:30p.m.
Conklin Hall, Room 100, 175 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102
What is it that mathematicians do, and why do they do it?
Reflecting on the practice of mathematical research “without apologies” (an allusion to G.H. Hardy’s 1940 Mathematician’s Apology), Professor Michael Harris sheds a more nuanced light on the vocation than is suggested by the epithets good, true and beautiful usually attributed to it, and discusses the issue of social responsibility.
Michael Harris is professor of mathematics at the Université
Paris Diderot and Columbia University, and author of the book
Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic
Vocation by Princeton University Press.
