Vacuum cleaners generating hot air

Published by peter on 2012-12-01 in Advertising, Market planning and Marketing strategy. 0 Comments

Apparently, British inventor James Dyson has argued that more people should study engineering and fewer “French lesbian poetry”.    Assuming he is correctly quoted, there are a couple of things one could say in response.
First, all Mr Dyson need do is pay engineers more than the going market rates, and he will attract more people  into the profession.   Likewise, he could give students scholarships to study engineering.   He, unlike most of the rest of us, has it in his direct personal power to achieve this goal.   I think it ill-behooves someone who moved his manufacturing operations off-shore to bemoan any lack of home-grown talents.
Second, no matter how wonderful the engineering technology or novelty of the latest, jet-propelled, wind-turbine-bladed vacuum cleaner, the technology will not sell itself.   For that, even the vacuum cleaners of the famous Mr Dyson need marketing and advertising.  And, marketing needs people who can understand and predict customer attitudes and behaviours, people who have studied psychology and sociology and anthropology and economics.  Marketing needs people who can analyze data, increasingly in large quantities and in real-time, people who have studied mathematics and statistics and computer science and econometrics.  Marketing needs people who can strategize, people who have studied game theory and military strategy and political science and history, and can emphathize with customers and competitors.   As Australian advertising man Philip Adams once noted, Marxists and ex-Marxists are often the best marketing strategists, because they think dialectically about the long term.
And advertising needs people who can manipulate images, people who have usually studied art or art history or graphic design or architecture.  Advertising needs people who can take photos and use movie cameras and direct films, people who have studied photography and cinematography and lighting and film and theatre studies and acting.  Advertising needs people who can write jingles and advertising scores, and play the music required, people who have studied music and song and musical instruments.   Advertising needs people who can build sets, acquire props, and obtain costumes, people who are good with their hands or who have studied fashion.   And, finally, advertising needs people who can write ad copy and scripts – often people have studied history and journalism and languages and literature and poetry – even, at times, I would guess, the poetry of French lesbians.
One reason Britain is a such a world leader in marketing and advertising, despite the long-term decline and poor management of its manufacturing industry,  is because of its many leading art colleges and universities teaching the humanities and social sciences.  The name of Dyson would not be known to households across the country and beyond without the contributions of many, many professionals who did not study engineering.
 
UPDATE (2012-12-01):  And if you are still wondering why more people studying engineering would not be sufficient for business success, consider this from Grant McCracken:

Culture is the sea in which business swims. We can’t do good innovation without it. We can’t do good marketing without it. And we can’t build a good corporate culture without it.”

 

The pure mathematical universe

Published by peter on 2012-11-08 in Mathematics, Matherati and Music. 0 Comments

Somewhere on his blog, the indefatigable Cosma Shalizi has written about the disciplinary universe of mathematics – that in addition to pure mathematics itself, pure mathematics is used in (and is essential to) the disciplines of Statistics and Computer Science.  This idea struck a chord, and I began to wonder exactly what particular aspect of pure mathematics was being used in each of these other disciplines and where else such methods or approaches were being used.  Of course, having trained as a pure mathematician who turned to mathematical statistics and then eventually to computer science, I know precisely what parts or theories of  pure math were being used in these two disciplines, so this is not my question.    For example, the theory and practice of mathematical statistics draw on probability theory (which itself draws on measure theory and the theory of integration, which in turn require Cantor’s theory of infinite collections), and, in statistical decision theory,  on the differential geometry of information.    (Indeed, I recall being strongly annoyed in my introductory statistics courses that so often proofs of theorems were postponed until “after you know measure theory.”)  Rather, what interests me is what abstract processes – what we might call, mathematical styles of thinking (mathmind, as distinct from, say, the styles of thinking of anthropology or history or chemistry)  – were being used, and where.
Not for the first time, I considered an input-process-output model.  From this viewpoint, we can view pure mathematics itself as a process of (mostly) deductive reasoning that transforms facts about abstract formal objects into other facts about abstract formal objects.   The abstract formal objects may have a basis in some (apprehension of some manifestation of) some real domain or objects, but such a basis is neither necessary nor important to the mathematics.   Until the mid 20th century, people used to say that mathematics was the theory of number, although why they thought this when the key examplar of this theory was Euclidean geometry, a theory which is mostly number-free and scale-invariant, I don’t know.    Since the mid-20th century, people have tended to say that mathematics is the theory of structure and relationship, which better describes most parts of pure mathematics, including Euclidean geometry, and better describes the potential applications and utility of the subject.
Many of the disciplines in the mathematical universe use the same processes – essentially deductive reasoning and, sometimes, calculation – to transform different inputs to certain outputs.   Here is my list (to be added to, when I think of others).
Pure Mathematics

  • Input = Abstract formal structures and objects
  • Process = Manipulation based on deductive reasoning (and, occasionally, calculation)
  • Output = Knowledge about abstract formal structures and objects

Theoretical Physics

  • Input = Mathematical models of physical reality
  • Process = Manipulation based on deductive reasoning and calculation
  • Output = Knowledge about (mathematical models of) physical reality

Mainstream Economics

  • Input = Mathematical models of economic reality
  • Process = Manipulation based on deductive reasoning and calculation
  • Output = Knowledge about (mathematical models of) economic reality

Computational Economics

  • Input = Computational models of economic reality
  • Process = Manipulation based on deductive and inductive reasoning, calculation and simulation
  • Output = Knowledge about (computational models of) economic reality

Exploratory Statistics:

  • Input = Raw data
  • Process = Processing and manipulation
  • Output = Information

Computer Processing:

  • Input = Information
  • Process = Processing and manipulation, including operations derived from both deductive and inductive reasoning, and simulation
  • Output = Information

Statistical Decision Theory (quantitative decision theory)

  • Input = Information
  • Process = Processing and manipulation, both inductive and deductive reasoning
  • Output = Knowledge, Actions

Computer Science:

  • Input = Abstract formal structures and objects, intended as models of computational processes
  • Process = Manipulation based on both deductive and inductive reasoning, and simulation
  • Output = Knowledge about (abstract formal structures and objects, as models of) computational processes

Engineering:

  • Input = Physical objects and materials
  • Process = Manipulation based on deductive reasoning and calculation
  • Output = Physical objects and materials

(Formal) Logic

  • Input = Formal representations of statements and arguments
  • Process = Manipulation based on deductive reasoning
  • Output = Formal representations of statements and arguments

AI Planning

  • Input = Information, actions
  • Process = Manipulation based on deductive reasoning and simulation
  • Output = Knowledge, actions, plans

Qualitative Decision Theory

  • Input = Information, actions
  • Process = Processing and manipulation, both inductive and deductive reasoning
  • Output = Knowledge, actions, plans.

Musical composition

  • Input = Abstract formal structures and objects with a sonic semantics
  • Process = Manipulation, based on deductive-like reasoning or simulation-like generation
  • Output = (Plans for the production of) sounds

Some of the statements implied by these input-process-output schemas are contested.  I would argue that, for instance, any knowledge gained by mathematical economics is only ever knowledge about the mathematical model being studied, and not about the real world which the model is intended to represent.   But this is not the view of most economists, who seem to think they are talking about reality rather than their model of it.  Perhaps this view explains why economics seems peculiarly immune to the major revision or rejection of models on the basis of their failure to predict or describe actual empirical data.
A word on the last schema above:   The composition, performance and even the auditing of music may involve thinking, as I argue here.  Some of the specific modes of musical thinking involved have much in common with deductive mathematical reasoning, in the sense that they can involve the working out of the logical consequences of musical ideas, where the logic being used is not Modus Ponens or Reductio ad Absurdum (as in pure mathematics), but a logic of sounds, pitches, rhythms, timbre and parts.

The epistemics of London Underground announcements

Published by peter on 2012-11-03 in Language and Philosophy of Language. 0 Comments

What the announcer at the London underground station said this morning:

  • We have no reports of unplanned station closures.

What he did not say:

  • There are no reports of unplanned station closures.   Perhaps he did not say this because there could be such reports, which he or his station have yet to receive.  In either case – whether he had received such reports or not – he would not be able to state truthfully that there were no such reports.
  • There are no unplanned station closures.  Perhaps he did not say this because stations could be closed without this fact having yet been reported, and so without his knowing this about them.
  • No stations are closed.  Perhaps he did not say this because stations could be closed intentionally and with forethought, for instance, for scheduled maintenance.   Indeed, such a statement would in fact be false as there several London underground stations which are permanently closed, eg Aldwych Station.
  • All stations are open.   Perhaps he did not say this because stations could be neither open nor closed, for example when they are in transition from one state to the other, or else due to quantum uncertainty.

One has to be so careful in what one says, as I have remarked before.

Conservatives for Bam

Published by peter on 2012-10-23 in Politics. 0 Comments

Andrew Sullivan on Barack Obama, after last-night’s Presidential Debate:

After eight years of the most disastrous, misguided, immoral and a catastrophic foreign policy, Obama has brought the US back from the brink, presided over the decimation of al Qaeda, the liberation of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, and restored America’s moral standing in the world.
. . .
But this was Obama’s debate; and he reminded me again of how extraordinarily lucky this country has been to have had him at the helm in this new millennium.
He’s flawed; he’s made mistakes; but who hasn’t? If this man, in these times, with this record, against this opposition, does not deserve re-election, then I am simply at a loss for words. I have to believe the American people will see that in time.”

George Fortune RIP

Published by peter on 2012-10-22 in Obituaries. 0 Comments

The death occurred last week of George Fortune, former Professor of African Languages at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (later the University of Rhodesia, and later still, the University of Zimbabwe), and pioneer of the study of chiShona and Bantu linguistics.   He was the principal author of the standard chiShona language text.    His wife Denise was a daughter of Leonard Morgan (1894-1967), Rhodes Scholar and first permanent secretary of the Federal Department of Education in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.   Fortune’s nephew, the late Christopher Lewis, was one of the brave Zimbabwean opponents of minority rule assisted by the Rhodesian Underground Railroad.    I met Fortune only a few times three decades ago, and although by that time his politics were quite conservative (surprisingly so, given his earlier Jesuit training), his views on language and culture were always interesting.
An obituary is here.

Music and Physics on the Strand

Published by peter on 2012-10-19 in History, Music and Science. 0 Comments

The Music Shop at no. 436 Strand

Monday 22 October 2012, 6.00pm-7.30pm
Venue: King’s College London
Strand Building 2:39 (English Seminar Room)
Introduced by Clare Pettitt
“From the age of fourteen until his late teens, Charles Wheatstone worked in his uncle’s musical instrument shop on the Strand, modifying instruments and conducting experiments in acoustics at the back of the shop until he left to take up a scientific career, later moving down the road to become Professor of Experimental Philosophy at King’s College London and inventing the stereoscope, improving the concertina (Wheatstone’s musical instrument makers is still a going concern and makes concertinas) and inventing, with Cooke, the telegraph. When he was only 19 years old in September 1821, Wheatstone caused quite a sensation by inventing and exhibiting the ‘Enchanted Lyre or Aconcryptophone’ at his father’s music school/shop on Pall Mall and subsequently at the Adelaide Gallery of Practical Science on the Strand.
This session will concentrate on the crossover between musical, commercial and scientific culture and will ask whether it is possible to map the multiple utility of spaces on the Strand (shops which are schools which are galleries which are scientific workshops etc.) onto the radical rearrangement of the senses in this period which made new technologies of seeing, hearing and communication possible.”
[Text from here, where references and suggestions for further reading may also be found.]

Requiescat in pace

Published by peter on 2012-10-19 in Obituaries. 0 Comments

As the path of life unfurls, these are people I’ve encountered along the way whom I wish to remember:

Dan Adams (1919-2011), businessman/USA
Mary Calista Newhard Adams (1925-2025), homemaker/USA
Neil Adams (1957-2020), administrator/Australia
Jonathan Adler (1949-2012), philosopher/USA
Andreas Albrecht (ca. 1950-2019), computer scientist/Germany & UK
Dorothee Alsen (ca. 1940-1984), musician/Germany
Alex Armstrong (ca. 1920-ca. 1990), farmer/Australia
Cath Armstrong (ca. 1920-ca. 1990), homemaker/Australia
Kenneth Arrow (1921-2017), economist/USA
Isabelle Atcheson (ca. 1935-1999), musician/Australia
Michael Atiyah OM (1929-2019), mathematician/UK
Pam Baker (1930-2002), lawyer & refugee advocate/Scotland & Hong Kong
Michael Ball (ca. 1950-ca. 2012), mathematician/UK
Steve Barker (ca. 1955-2012), computer scientist/UK
Ole Barndorff-Nielsen (1935-2022), statistician/Denmark
Trevor Baylis (1937-2018), inventor/UK
Christophe Bertrand (1981-2010), composer and pianist/France
David Beach (1943-1999), historian/Zimbabwe
Trevor Bench-Capon (1953-2024), AI researcher and argumentation theorist/UK
Yuri Bessmertny (ca. 1930-2000), medieval historian/Russia
Bruce Bevan (ca. 1969-2024), language teacher, corporate trainer and wit/Australia
Jack Bice (1919-2018), dentist and jazz-fan/Australia
Jennifer Biggar (1946-2008), charity worker/UK
Leo Birsen (1902-1992), violinist and violin teacher/Zimbabwe
Continue reading ‘Requiescat in pace’

Polygon construction

Published by peter on 2012-10-09 in Mathematics. 0 Comments

Mathematician Sean Eberhard has a nice post about constructible regular polygons, giving a proof of a characterization of the n-sided polygons (aka n-gons) which are constructible only with a ruler and a compass. Those which are so constructible correspond to n being decomposable into a power of 2 and a product of primes of a certain form:

Theorem The regular n-gon is constructible by ruler and compass if and only if n has the form p_1 * . . . . * p_l * 2^k, where p_1, . . . , p_l are distinct primes of the form 2^{2^m} + 1.

That physical geometric actions should map to – and from – certain prime numbers is a good example of some of the deep interactions that exist between different parts of mathematics, interactions that often take us by surprise and usually compel our wonder.
One question that immediately occurs to me is whether there are other instruments besides ruler and compass which, jointly with those two instruments, would enable n-gon construction for other values of n.   Indeed, is there a collection of instruments (presumably some of them “non-constructible” or infinite in themselves) which would eventually garner all n, or at least other interesting subsets of the natural numbers?

De mortuis nil nisi bonum

Published by peter on 2012-10-06 in Economics, Mathematics and Obituaries. 0 Comments

In a posthumous tribute to one of my late university lecturers, I read:

His [name of university] years were characterised by his love and enthusiasm for teaching.  His dedication to his students was reciprocated in their affection for him. The large Economics I classes that he taught (numbering in some cases up to 400 students) were legendary.”

Although I would prefer not to speak ill of the dead, these words are a distortion of the historical truth, or at the least, very incomplete.   The lecturer concerned was certainly legendary, but mostly for his vituperative disdain for anyone who did not share his extreme monetarist and so-called “economic rationalist” views. It is true that I did not know ALL of my fellow economics students, but of the score or so I did know, no one I knew felt they received any affection from him, nor did they reciprocate any. Indeed, those of us also studying pure mathematics thought him innumerate. He once told us, in a thorough misunderstanding of mathematical induction, that any claim involving an unspecified natural number n which was true for n=1, n=2, and n=3 was usually true, more generally, for all n. What about the claim that “n is a natural number less than 4“, I wondered.

As I recall, his lectures mostly consisted of declamations of monetarist mumbo-jumbo, straight from some University of Chicago seminar, given along with scorn for any alternative views, particularly Keynesianism. But he was also rudely disdainful of any viewpoint, such as many religious views, that saw value in social equity and fairness. Anyone who questioned his repeated assertions that all human actions were always and everywhere motivated by self-interest was rebuked as naive or ignorant.

In addition to the declamatory utterance of such tendentious statements, his lectures and lecture slides included very general statements marked, “Theorem“, followed by words and diagrams marked, “Proof“. A classic example of a “Theorem” was “Any government intervention in an economy leads to a fall in national income.” His proof of this very large claim began with the words, “Consider a two-person economy into which a government enters . . . ” The mathematicians in the class objected strongly that, at best, this was an example, not a proof, of his general claim. But he shouted us down. Either he was ignorant of the simplest forms of mathematical reasoning, or an ideologue seeking to impose his ideology on the class (or perhaps both).

I remained sufficiently angry about this perversion of my ideal of an academic discipline that I later wrote an article for the student newspaper about the intellectual and political compromises that intelligent, numerate, rational, or politically-engaged students would need to make in order to pass his course. That such a lecturer should be remembered as an admirable teacher is a great shame.

Halmos on learning mathematics

Published by peter on 2012-10-06 in Mathematics. 0 Comments

Paul R. Halmos:

Don’t just read it; fight it! Ask your own questions, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the classical special case? What about the degenerate cases? Where does the proof use the hypothesis?