HE does all his mathematics in his head, hardly pausing to scribble on paper.
Recognised as one of the world’s greatest living mathematicians, and holding a Fields medal—they call it the Nobel for math—Sir Michael Atiyah (74) chatted with Newsline in a quiet study at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
So that Mumbai doesn’t get too scared of numbers or his best-known achievement—K-theory, with links to geometry+topology+algebra+calculus— Atiyah brought photos of Plato and Hawking with him. In case you don’t remember who they are.
Will computers take over from mathematicians?
I don’t use computers, except for e-mail! Most of my maths is in my head. PCs cannot push mathematicians out of a job.
If you teach a computer what to do, it can do it faster. But computers don’t help with the fundamental thinking process.
My father always knew I would be a mathematician. When we travelled when I was young, I would exchange pocket money for foreign currencies and always make a profit!
Indian mathematicians and the disappearing trick
India’s talented pool of mathematicians is pushed into only one direction very early. If you are good at maths, you go to IIT and become an engineer. Probably an excellent engineer. But in UK and US universities, students move within several sciences simultaneously and hone an ability to apply mathematics better.
Mathematics, 2050
We’re on the verge of a major revolution in biology, with big problems nobody really understands. Mathematicians will provide models on how the human brain works and to make sense of the human genome project. When any science gets complicated, you need mathematics.
A General Theory of Everything?
At the end of the 19th century people thought they had all there was to physics. So we could be wrong that we’ll get a final, general theory of everything within the next five or 10 years. I think we may still be missing some fundamental insight. Suddenly we could be faced with new discoveries that we have no explanation for.
Cramming and calculus
You can’t learn maths by heart! It can be as pretty as a painting.