Mathematician Jacob Lurie, 2014 MacArthur Fellow

[Music] my name is Jacob Lurie I'm a mathematician I'm presently employed as a professor of mathematics at Harvard University in my research I study algebraic topology topology is the study of shapes and algebraic geometry which is the study of polynomial equations my work concerns how those two fields interact with one another and both of those subjects are things that I like thinking about a lot and so it seemed like a fun and natural way to combine the two so I think of mathematics as a large number of interconnected stories and I feel like my job as a mathematician is to take one or a few of those stories that I understand well and try and tell them in a way that other mathematicians can appreciate and enjoy and maybe use in their own work mathematics is maybe unique among academic disciplines in that mathematicians have this idea of proof you give a proof of something and then it's indisputable that what you've said is correct or at least that's a naive view of course proofs are made by people and people make mistakes so I've certainly made more than my share and it's always a little bit terrifying when you find out that you've made one because you realize that you don't understand something as well as you thought you did it's certainly something that you learn from every time you make one of these mistakes the process of correcting it and understanding where you went wrong is a very beneficial one my job that Harvard involves a lot of teaching what could be done about public perception of mathematics in general the way that mathematics is taught at the high school and beginning college level is a lot like if you were giving someone music classes and you said alright in this class we're going to play the C major scale over and over again and then if you do that well enough you get to take the advanced class where you'll play a G major scale over and over again and this is not something that's going to instill in someone a love of music I think that it would be much better for a lot of people if they wanted to take one Mattox class in college that they could take one that focuses on the history of a lot of ideas in mathematics mathematics is a giant playground filled with all kinds of toys that the human mind can play with but many of these toys have very long operating manuals but some of them don't and I think that there are a number of mathematical insights that are very interesting that you really could teach to someone in a freshman course I would like to be viewed as just part of the intellectual culture in the same way that taking a class in Plato or taking a class on Shakespeare would be just familiarizing yourself with some sort of general intellectual culture of the civilization I just answered the phone it was a surprise I certainly wasn't expecting this prize I'd heard of these fellowships but I had no idea that they even gave them to mathematicians you

Channel: macfound

Views: 130,540

Rating: 4.941606 out of 5

Keywords: Jacob Lurie, MacArthur Fellowship (Award Category), John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (Nonprofit Organization), math, Mathematics (Field Of Study), Derived, Algebraic Geometry (Literature Subject), Algebra (Field Of Study), Topology (Field Of Study)

Id: ZMG3hS4udvs

Length: 3min 32sec (212 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 16 2014