TECH

'Who understands mathematics controls the world'

A HQ balloon on Marcus du Sautoy's (London, 1965) T-shirt says, "I do not know anything." Not true: Du Sautoy is a senior lecturer in mathematics at Oxford University (UK) and holds the Simonyi Chair for Public Understanding of Science, a position in which he replaced ethologist Richard Dawkins in 2008. The mathematician, writer and scientific disseminator went to Madrid to present the Spanish edition of his new book, What We Can not Know, unpublished in Brazil.The shirt is not a mere chance. Although the balloon leaves the mouth of the fictional character Jon Snow of Game of Thrones, Du Sautoy chose it to draw attention to his own ignorance. Despite his immense knowledge, this is a scientist who is not afraid to admit the unknown, much less to confront it. The paradoxical statement recalls a phrase from physicist John Archibald Wheeler: "We live on an island in an unknown sea. As the island of knowledge grows, so does the coast of ignorance. "

Question: The more you know, the more you question. Is the same also true for collective knowledge? Or what we do not know diminishes as science advances?There is the feeling that knowledge is like a Greek hydra: you cut a head and two others appear
Answer: It all depends on the image you use. There is a sense that knowledge is like a Greek hydra: you cut a head and two others appear. This image of knowledge is a circle: as the circle grows, the edge, which represents the boundary with which we do not know, also seems to increase. But there is another image, which is a sphere: the more you explore the surface of a sphere, the less is the area you do not know. I believe that physics is giving us the feeling that we are mapping the sphere and converging on what we call a theory of everything. There is a sense that we may reach the point where, collectively, our knowledge is sufficient to have a history of how the universe works. But we do not know.

Q. You talk about mapping knowledge as something that already exists, waiting to be discovered. If the extraterrestrials were science, would they reach the same physical laws, would they have the same mathematics?
A. I believe that mathematics is unique. I'm basically a Platonist, I suppose because I'm a mathematician. As humans, we may be limited in the disciplines we can explore, study, and understand; we have limitations because of our culture, our anatomy. But I believe in an underlying Platonic world that we all observe through a magical eye, and an extraterrestrial will have another magical eye.

Q. In your book you mention knowledge that we can never attain by its very nature. Are they questions that humans can not answer, or do they have no answer?
A. It is not that they have no answer, but the answer can not be achieved by finite processes. A question that has no answer is not interesting. To give a tangible example: is the universe finite or infinite? This has an answer. We assume that it is infinite, but there is a limit to what we know, because information travels at the speed of light, and the universe was born 13.8 billion years ago. We are in a bubble, either our intelligence, our complexity, or how many computers we use, there is no way of getting information beyond the confines of the bubble. I think this is a good example of an intrinsic limitation on the knowledge that the physical universe imposes on any being who wants to know it.

Q. That's where religion comes in for a lot of people, including scientists. Do you believe that science and religion are compatible?
A. One of the problems of religion is linguistic, the inability to define what we mean by certain terms. So in the book I am led by theologian Herbet McCabe and I say, "Let us define God as all that we can not know." In that sense, as long as there are limits to knowledge, science and religion are compatible. I believe many religious scientists refer to this; they say, "I do not know where this came from, I will call God the creator, but those who create follow laws that I can study as a scientist." It's what we call being a deist. I believe that the real problem of compatibility is for the theists: they believe that their god is acting in the world. I believe that this is an interesting tension worth exploring, and so I wanted to give more nuances than the ones that Richard Dawkins offered in this debate.

Q. You distance yourself from Dawkins' position on religion. Do you think he overcame any limit when he held the chair for the Public Understanding of Science?
A. No. Richard [Dawkins] has always taken care to use science as his tool of argumentation. In this way he has focused people's attention on the reasons why they believe in evolution, because we know that it is a robust theory that survives criticism. I think he had his moment and his place, but Richard's stance polarized the debate, and I would like to have a more subtle, more subtle debate, past that important moment in God's publication, A Delusion.

Q. What role do you have as a professor for the Oxford Public Understanding?It is very important that scientists come on the scene and involve society
A. I consider myself an ambassador. Science is like a superpower: it has so much impact on the rest of society ... it's like a huge continent. And yet, many political crises in science, such as the controversy over genetically modified organisms and stem cell research, came about because the public did not understand them. So I think it's very important that scientists come on the scene and involve society. What I want to do is to extend bridges and create dialogue, to understand why people care about genetically modified organisms. If scientists are proactive, we can solve the unnecessary fears that may arise regarding the impact of science.

Q. You speak in dialogue and involve society, not in the "public understanding of science" that was talked about a few years ago. Is it an old-fashioned and condescending phrase?
A. Yes, I think it is. She seems very much of the old guard. But the chair was created in the 1990s, when we had the vision that "we, the scientists, give the answers, and you listen to us." I'm trying to implement a modern version for my role, but the title sounds old-fashioned.

Q. Of all the sciences, people feel a special fascination for their discipline, mathematics, despite being one of the most hated matters in schools. Because?I think people realize that 'numerati', those who hold mathematics, have power
A. I think it's because we repeatedly realize that mathematics underlies everything else. To understand any science, mathematics is necessary: ​​it is the best language, the language of nature. And I think people understand, when they read about math, that it is a very powerful language, and that those who understand it control the world. If you ask "what are the powers of this world today?", They are not the heads of nations, they are the heads of companies like Google, Facebook and Apple. They are people who know math. Google creators Sergei Brin and Larry Page are two geeks who understood that math allows us to navigate a very complex network. I believe people realize that the numerati, those who hold mathematics, have power.The tragedy is that it seems that education deceives us. And it is a problem of all educational systems. When we get to secondary school, the disciplines become watertight. There is math, after music, after history, but we do not make the connections between them. When does.

Source: elpais.com