In this context, I would like to give a quotation from the the Autobiography of Thomas Young (1773-1829), referred to in the book `The last man who knew everything', Andrew Robinson, Pearson Education Inc, 2006, p.224. "It is indeed so impossible to forsee the capabilities of improvement in any science, that it is idle to form any general opinion of what would be the comparative advantage of the employment of time in any one investigation rather than another, for almost all the authors of important discoveries and even of inventions, are led as much by accident as by system to their success." Thomas Young was the person who developed the wave theory of light, and many other things. See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Young_%28scientist%29 However the Government has long enjoined its research assessment panels to predict the future, without being completely clear on the methodology for this. All this does reinforce the good sense in trying to make clear the (current!) role of category theory, and its wide ranging influence. Ronnie Brown On 18/07/2011 07:51, Timothy Porter wrote:
On 17/07/2011 16:51, Andr=E9 Joyal wrote:
Dear All,
An article on
THE UNPLANNED IMPACTS OF MATHEMATICS
was recently published in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7355/full/475166a.html
andr=E9
[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]