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Motivated by this question I would like to know whether there is an exact definition of modern mathematics. In which point in time (century, decade) does one think, when speaking about modern mathematics. Does it refer to the Abstract Algebra?


Edit: I got -1. If this is not a correct question, please state why. And it can be closed if the question is not proper.

This is a genuine doubt and ignorance of mine!

Edit 2: In my humble opinion instead of closing, should be better to tag it as a community wiki. Anyway I do not have any no objections against in closing it.

Edit 3: Now is a community wiki.

Edit 4. I have learned from the answers and comments, including the explanation for closing!

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    Tongue-in-cheek question: how modern is "modern"?2010-08-27
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    I think the answer is No. It's not an exact concept with a clear meaning. (E.g. it's sometimes used to distinguish current-day practices and ideas from those of an earlier time, etc.)2010-08-27
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    Should be community wiki in my opinion.2010-08-27
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    Maybe you're refering to "new math"? In that case, the explanation in Wikipedia is fair and concise: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_math .2010-08-27
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    @Agusti Roig: I used the exact words of the question I pointed to. I will check if is the same of "new math". Thanks for the link!2010-08-27
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    @Agusti Roig: After havind read the wikipedia entry, I think not because New Math is more "The new mathematical pedagogy". It seems to me that it is different than Mathematics as done today.2010-08-27
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    It's 1) not a mathemtical question 2) question without good answer (besides "no, it isn't"). Voting to close.2010-08-27
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    @Grigory M: Is "more modern mathematics" acceptable as a question?2010-08-27
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    In my humble opinion instead of closing, should be better to tag it as a community wiki. Anyway I do not have any objection for closing it.2010-08-27
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    @Américo: If you think it should be CW, then check the community wiki checkbox when you're editing.2010-08-27
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    @KennyTM: Thanks! I've just changed it to community wiki.2010-08-27
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    @Grigory M: From what I read in the answers I concluded that "Modern Mathematics" is not an exact concept. And that has helped me.2010-08-27

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Following in a tradition of similar purported definitions, one may say that "modern mathematics is what modern mathematicians do". :-)

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The opposite of "modern" is "classical," and a common use of the word classical is "whatever was known when I was in college." That's a little tongue-in-cheek, but it really is how many people use the term. See more discussion here.

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    So eventually everything we know now will become classical, then? ;)2010-08-27
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    @JMangaldan: Then I can't wait for quantum field theories being called classical physics...2010-08-27
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    Tobias: Ditto. :)2010-08-27
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    @Tobias Kienzler: if only life were that simple. I think it is more likely to become "classical quantum field theory" (in the spirit of "complex simple Lie algebra").2010-08-27
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    Yes, everything will become classical. I repeatedly hear people use "classical" to describe something that was unknown five years ago.2010-08-27
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Further to the other answers, which are indeed correct: no technical definition exists- barks $\iff$ dog, frankly- but 'modern' is a well defined concept outside of mathematics; and to a certain extent it is one to which the barkings of modern mathematics agree.

It was once the case that mathematicians believed proofs to uncover the neccessarily true- there must be numbers working thus, and those numbers must naturally have no zero divisors- there must be a geometry built thus, and this geometry must have angles in a triangle summing to $180^o$. With the exception of the work of Euclid (whose axioms were largely seen by others as immutable anyway), the theorems of mathematics were seen as universal truths, fouded in pure logic- facts about platonic ideals.

Except none of this was true.

Perhaps the first chink in the armour of this classical mathematics came with the work of Bolyai and Gauss, constructing consistent geometries where triangles behaved unusually (turning, as we all know, into modern Hyperbolic geometry), that seeped from a change in the hitherto 'immutable' axioms.

And from here the trickle began, which rushed and swelled with time, and burst the banks of mathematics as was: axioms became plastic, changeable at will, and with them the mathematics that followed from them. New concepts were created, and concepts of concepts, enriching and enlarging the mathematical landscape in ways that generations before could not have imagined.

Parallell to this explosion was the search for foundations for these axioms- the dying embers of platonism in the work of Frege, Russell and Whitehead; Hilbert's program, seeming at first promising, were spectacularly micturated on by Godel's incompleteness theorems. And it soon became (quite) clear, that any (provably) 'ultimate' description of mathematics was doomed to failure.

Modernism outside of mathematics is characterised by a certain relativism- an understanding that different perspectives can lead to different (equally valid) conclusions. In modern mathematics one has the reals and the p-adics, euclidean and non-euclidian geometries, topologies and metric spaces, groups, rings, algebras: sets and mereology- and we cannot claim one to be more valid than the others.

In modern mathematics, our truths are absolute but crucially contingent, the children of axioms in a pluralistic universe of possible postulates.

Of course some would say that 'modern' just means 'with categories', but that's not quite as neat- perhaps we can fit categories to 'post-modern' somehow....

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    Yes, but this sense of "modern" is no longer modern! It has been around since the time of Hilbert and Godel. Perhaps we should speak instead of "postmodern mathematics."2010-08-27
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    @Qiaochu with maybe the categorical movement ushering in the post?2010-08-27
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    @Qiaochu Being "modern" is *so* old hat. Nowadays everyone wants to be "hip" or "groovy" or "with it" or "fab"...2010-08-27
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    walkytalky: That you use "groovy" seems to betray your age. ;) Anyway, I'm not holding my breath waiting for the first use of "post-postmodern".2010-08-27
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    @J. *Seems*. But I'll admit it's close. And what's all this I'm hearing about a popular beat combo named after some kind of arthropod?2010-08-27
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    Qiaochu, here is some postmodern mathematics: http://www.amazon.com/Postmodern-Analysis-Jurgen-Jost/dp/35404387342010-08-28
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    I have lots of beefs with this "lecture", but even if we grant everything that is being said, the obvious fact that needs to be pointed out is that Euclid (and its Greek peers) have bequeathed us the axiomatic-deductive method, *THE* most-far reaching structural / organizational principle in mathematics. It is so pervasive, that one can no longer remember what is mathematics without it. Talk about modern...2010-08-30
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    @G- I did mention Euclid. My point was not to talk about axioms as a modern invention, so much as to sketch their 'modern' reinterpretation. Although it is impossible to fully know if Euclid saw that the axioms he proposed had no absolute truth in and of themselves and were flexible to the point of explaining different theories as they were changed, but I doubt it.2010-08-30