Re: [Sci] An Interview with V. Arnold

[Sonnet Nguyen <Sonnet.Nguyen@fuw.edu.pl>]

Dear friends,
On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Nguyen Tien Zung wrote:

> O+? LX cu~ co' cha Drinfeld chi? ngo^\i ly\ o+? Kharkov. Ngu+o+\i ta no'i
> cha kho^ng chi.u ddi dda^u vi\ tie^'c tho+\i gio+\, cu+' 5 phu't la\ 1
> ddi.nh ly',
> kho^ng bie^'t ba^y gio+\ co' nhu'c nhi'ch ddi dda^u kho^ng?

It is not true.  Drinfeld was in few international congreses of
mathematicians.   For example, in 1988, (in Berkeley) he presented his
(most) famous paper "Quantum Groups" which has (at least) few thousands
citations.   Nowaday, Drinfeld is (undoubtly) one of the best
mathematicians in the field of mathematical physics.

> > The Bourbaki manifesto containing these words was translated into
> > Russian as ``all clear ideas were replaced by blind calculations.''
> > The editor of the translation was Kolmogorov. His French was
> > excellent. I was shocked to find such a mistake in the translation and
> > discussed it with Kolmogorov. His answer was: I had not realized that
> > something is wrong in the translation, since the translator described
> > the Bourbaki style much better than the Bourbakists did.
> > Unfortunately, Poincare left no school in France.
> 
> IMO, Bourbaki books are not good for learning, but very good
> as reference books.

Bourbaki books are very "hard" for young students of math, but 
varies other good books (writen by great logicians) are too hard not only 
for students but also for senior mathematicians.   
The best way to learn and do math is a alternative Bourbaki + Poincare.
   The style of VI Arnold (in oposit to Bourbakists)
has also valid.  I never have understood proofs given in the Arnold's
books!!  These contain the main idea (and steps) of proofs, but are not
complete proofs.    

> >It is awful to think what kind of 
> > pressure the Bourbakists put on
> > (evidently nonsilly) students to reduce them to formal machines! This
> > kind of formalized education is completely useless for any practical
> > problem and even dangerous, leading to Chernobyl-type events.
> > Unfortunately, this plague of formal deduction is propagating in many
> > countries, and the future of the mathematics infected by it is rather
> > bleak.

One could denote a reductionism in comtemp. math from Hilbert (then it 
is more earlier than Bourbakists time) and in the greece phylosophy in BC.
Nowaday, Mathematics becomes a art (of art) for himself.  The circle of
people those undertand these beauties is very few (in the comparision with 
human beeing population).  
What about the future of math?
Ask Lichnerowicz ...  But he also lies ..... 
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SN