The n-Category Café

It seems to be worth mentioning that, unlike most UKRI and similar schemes, application is not limited to tenured academics at UK universities — at least as far as I can tell. Is that correct? If so, it’s a welcome change.

There’s a few questions that I’m interested in the history of maths and physics. I don’t know whether they would be a good fit for this programme because of the emphasis on mathematics. But then again, mathematics and physics are closely entertwined. Or to use an old but woefully underused term, in a dialectic relationship with each other:

1. How Newton’s laws of motion came about. Usually they’re just presented to us as a fait accompli. But there is a longer history. For example, I can trace a development from Aristotle notion of force, in the sense it causes change, to Philoponus notion of impetus and then Avicenna and then to Galileo and Newton. I think this is useful as a corrective, as Aristotle is a whipping boy for modern physicists for getting things wrong! Whereas, Aristotle was widely read for getting much right, and for asking thought provoking questions - and who doesn’t get things wrong? Penrose, also outlined in a celebration of Newton’s work, how he thought up the third law given some documents in his work. That just leaves the second - is that merely the simplest law possible given his other posits?

2. A global history of atomism. Usually, it’s only ancient Greek atomism that is well known via Democritus and Lucretious. But Islamic, Jain & Buddhist civilisations also had something to say about atomism.

3. Contrastingly, a global history of continua could well be interesting. Ie waves vs atoms. We all know who theorised atoms but the continua line of thought often gets lost. I think it was Rene Thom that said for a millennia, Aristotle was the only significant theorist of continua.

4. A better history of calculus. I swallowed the line that Newton & Leibniz invented calculus. But I expect there is a prehistory that isn’t well known. For example, I learnt of Cavalieri’s principle recently which helped theorise integration.

@Baez:

Yes, I knew about that about Archimedes! I didn’t put that in as I didn’t want to make my post overlong. As he’s on your panel, I will sure to mention his name! There’s nothing quite like flattery.

Thanks for the encouragement. I’ll definitely check out the Global History of Mathematics and work up a proposal.

Ah, I see Archimedes is not on the panel. I misread what you wrote and thought that was a good joke which I wanted to run with ;-). I’ll check out Netz’s book. Thanks for the ref.

Expanding the scheme, ICMS now has funding associated with Mathematics for Humanity that enables it to support activity anywhere in the world — not just at ICMS. The activity should have the potential to contribute to the welfare of humanity:

https://www.icms.org.uk/funding-opportunities/mathematics-humanity-activities-worldwide

From the page just linked:

Applicants are invited to submit proposals belonging to one of the three themes for a satellite event at any location in the world that is optimal for impact, accessibility, and sustainability. As part of this effort, we expect to be able to fund up to ten global workshops for humanity with a maximum budget of 35,000 GBP each.

The “three themes” are listed here.

It is worth noting that “At least one of the applicants on any proposal should be eligible for funding from the UKRI” and that is pretty much equivalent to being a permanent member of the academic staff of a UK university. That condition was not imposed earlier, according to the comments made here a year ago. While it’s only natural for the ICMS, which is funded by UKRI, to impose that condition, it is perhaps a missed opportunity for the extra funding from Alex Gerko not to have been made more widely available: for example, to researchers from civil society organisations and NGOs.