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From: weemba@brahms (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: Military funding in maths
Message-ID: <344@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Tue, 18-Nov-86 04:50:46 EST
Article-I.D.: cartan.344
Posted: Tue Nov 18 04:50:46 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Nov-86 09:09:30 EST
References: <307@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk> <2274@mtgzz.UUCP>
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Reply-To: weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <2274@mtgzz.UUCP> leeper@mtgzz.UUCP writes:
>But far more than in the time of Napolean people with better
>mathematics have an advantage over those without.

I'd say it's the people with the brains that have an advantage.  Vietnam
and Afghanistan come to mind.

>						    Cryptography did not
>turn the tide in WWII,

Nonsense.  Cryptography *was* the tide, major battle after battle, from
Britain to El Alemain to Ardennes II to Stalingrad to Kursk to Midway to
Leyte Gulf.   Read Hinsley et al for starts before spouting off like the
above.

>		        but it sure helped.

It made all the difference.

>					     The mathematics behind the
>a-bomb saved a lot of Japanese lives as well as the obvious American
>lives.

More nonsense.  The Japanese were all set to surrender, but were in an
internal quandary as to how.  Not even an attempted palace coup made a
difference.

>        (Ever think about how the world would have been different if
>the US had gone ahead with its plan to invade Japan?

Yes, along with hundreds of other such questions, mostly suitable for
net.sf-lovers.

>						       Probably over a
>million killed on each side, I have heard it estimated.  That would
>have made for a very different world today.)

Perhaps Japan would be split.  Perhaps Czechoslovakia would not be in
the Warsaw Pact.  Other than that, you've got me stumped.  Not that I
see a point in debating the issue.

>					       Even without war math
>gives a real advantage over competitors.

Agreed.

>					   The we are at war with nobody
>right now				   ^^^?? (Tho?  That?)

That is debatable.

>	   but government is still vitally interested in mathematics.

Yes, but why?  And does that give them the right to come crashing down
from above?

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720