Freeman Dyson claims that Littlewood did not understand
the importance of the work that he and Cartwright had
done: "Only Cartwright understood the importance of her
work as the foundation of chaos theory, and she is not a
person who likes to blow her own trumpet."
He records, however, that shortly before her death, he
received an indignant letter from Cartwright, scolding
him for crediting her with more than she deserved.
I don't quite remember the last time an academic did that. On the contrary, I have personally observed quite the opposite. Glad to know there were (or are) people who uphold ethical and moral values.
There's probably a significant amount of selection bias occuring here, since it seems likely that one is more likely to hear about someone who is constantly self-promoting and wanting attention, rather than a quiet person who would much rather be left alone to wrestle with the problem in front of them than make a fuss to get huge acknowledgements.
Ed Lorenz didn't blow his own trumpet either. He used to give demonstrations on elementary chaos for kids in my town. Using an old fashioned pin ball machine. The man led a very solitary existence. We even ran into him on one of the mountains around our town shortly before he died. He stayed very active into his old age, but kept to himself. I remember wonder how he was seeing the world around him even though we were both on the same trail.
Great read, I didn't know chaos theory had applications to radar; I thought the study of radar originated in probability theory and spectral theory. Very interesting.
My only criticism is that Mary Cartwright would probably balk at the idea of royalty in mathematics.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 37.3 ms ] threadWhat does this even mean?
My only criticism is that Mary Cartwright would probably balk at the idea of royalty in mathematics.