Math Champions

So, I got my five minutes of fame with Fields medalist Timothy Gowers on Friday. Actually a bit more than five minutes. At the same time I was appalled by the fact that media showed minimal interest in the visit of a world famous mathematician. Would they have shunned a Nobel prize winner in literature, economics, or medicine? I doubt it. What makes one think that a mathematician of the highest abilities would have any less to say? Especially when it is question of such an eloquent and philosophical speaker as our Tim Gowers? I mean, have you journalists given it a thought where we would be today without mathematics? We would be living in the Stone Age, that’s where we would be! And I bet you wouldn’t be very comfortable with that. For starters, you would have to part with your cell phone, and how would you fancy that … ! So, what’s the deal? Were you afraid you wouldn’t understand? Or, that you wouldn’t know which questions to ask? Because, as mathematicians know, that’s kind of the most important part, isn’t it.

But well, I guess I shouldn’t torture myself with this. At least I was there. And the meeting was probably on pair, or almost, with the day I met Andrew Wiles and had the opportunity to say a few very unintelligible words to him before I discomposed myself by asking his autograph on a new dollar bill. Or the day I had lunch with Paul Erdös (see The Man Who Loved Only Numbers) and my professor in this little Vietnamese restaurant by Boulevard Raspail, where surprisingly enough the conversation quickly turned from mathematics to table tennis ...