A-bel is better than No-bel!

On March 31, I got up early, walked in a snowstorm to Bubaccar’s flat and waited outside. Together we road a bus to Heriot-Watt University. It was funny to hear the University of Edinburgh students describe the remoteness of Harriot Watt, a university of seven thousand students on the edge of Edinburgh. I invited them to Grinnell. Anyway, Bubaccar is a Ph.D. student and helped organize the Edinburgh Student Chapter of SIAM (Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics). He then also helped organize a one day conference. They had two wonderful keynote speakers. One is so good at math, he was knighted. Sir David Wallace is the director of the Newton Institute at Cambridge. The Institute serves as a host for six-month themed research programs and amazing results have been formulated and announced there. For example, when Wiles announce his proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, it was at the Newton Institute. Sir David said "...after three days of lectures, he looked at the board and said, 'I think I'll stop there.' There was a second of silence and then an explosion of applause!"

Later that day, I went to a talk by Jean-Pierre Serre, a very famous number theorist. He was introduced by Sir Michael Atiyah. Obviously, Sir Michael is also so good at math that he was knighted. In fact, very recently his knighthood was promoted. However, the impressive part of this duo is that they are two of the three people who have won both the Fields Medal and the Abel Prize. These two prizes are considered roughly equivalent to the Nobel Prize for which mathematics is not a prize category. The Fields Medal is for amazing singular accomplishments (a la the Nobel) but pays very little. The Abel prize is also awarded by the King of Norway and pays roughly $900,000 (a la the Nobel). So, winning both of these awards is just plain amazing. To be in the room two of the three who have done this, that was a rare thing and very cool.

A comment about Europe and science: in Europe, science is appreciated in a different manner than in the USA. Strangely, with all of our innovation, we seem to think of science as “hard” or “nerdy” rather than challenging and beautiful. Should it be so shocking that the average American student isn’t exceptionally proficient in the sciences? Which model do you think promotes a career in science better: the Presidential Medal of Science or Knighthood? Seriously, most of you just thought, “We have a Presidential Medal of Science?” But Sir David and Sir Michael are often invited to State affairs because of the status in society which was given to them because of their contributions to science. We can’t fix science education in the USA with a cool prize, but we could certainly make strides toward promoting science in a more positive, inviting fashion.

PS: I have only five more years of eligibility for a Fields Medal. I really think I could have won it this year if I hadn’t spent so much time writing this blog and doing push-ups.

PSS: Today’s title must be attributed to my Ph.D. advisor, Guido Weiss who is a master of awful jokes. He busted this awful joke out when introducing Sir Michael at a public lecture in St. Louis a few years ago.