James Glimm, December 19, 2008 7:00PM-8:00PM

Shanghai, China

One Mathematician’s View of the Growing Role of Mathematics Across Science & Beyond

The changing status of knowledge from descriptive to analytic, from empirical to theoretical and from intuitive to mathematical has to be one of the most striking adventures of the human spirit.  Then changes often occur in small steps and can be lost from view.  In this lecture we will review vignettes drawn from the speaker’s personal knowledge the illustrate this transformation in thinking.  Examples include not only the medicine, in the social sciences, in commerce, and in the arts.  We also review some of the forces driving these changes, which ultimately have a profound effect on the organization of human life.