Matemáticos y físicos publican trabajos tan divertidos como aparentemente poco prácticos: a veces resuelven cuestiones de chiste, otras veces dilemas que han permanecido en la consciencia colectiva durante siglos. Muchas veces son trabajos de cara a la galería, pero otras son trabajos rigurosamente comprobados… Bueno, si somos flexibles con la palabra «rigor».
This isn't just mathematically crass, it's historically ignorant. These formulae are ubiquitous: the happiest day of the year (sponsored by Walls ice cream); the equation for beer goggles (Bausch and Lomb); the most depressing day of the year (sponsored by Sky travel). They are wheeled out endlessly by PR companies as a way of getting their brand into the newspapers, because they know what newspaper editors will go for, like the Yeti. They know they hardly understand maths, or science, but that they think it's clever, that all science is arbitrary, that boffins just make stuff up, so you might just as well too. They add nothing to our understanding of any subject, and as for making maths "accessible" or "cool" – like Christian rock, perhaps - they don't do anything for anyone, if they're just plain wrong.
Comentarios
La razón de la mayoría de las noticias en plan "según un estudio" o "científicos han descubierto la [fórmulaecuación] del X perfecto":
http://www.badscience.net/2006/12/mediaslut-ideas-money-corporatewhore/
O resumido aquí: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/02/badscience.celebrity
This isn't just mathematically crass, it's historically ignorant. These formulae are ubiquitous: the happiest day of the year (sponsored by Walls ice cream); the equation for beer goggles (Bausch and Lomb); the most depressing day of the year (sponsored by Sky travel). They are wheeled out endlessly by PR companies as a way of getting their brand into the newspapers, because they know what newspaper editors will go for, like the Yeti. They know they hardly understand maths, or science, but that they think it's clever, that all science is arbitrary, that boffins just make stuff up, so you might just as well too. They add nothing to our understanding of any subject, and as for making maths "accessible" or "cool" – like Christian rock, perhaps - they don't do anything for anyone, if they're just plain wrong.