Serre: Finite groups, Yesterday and Today

Comments · 32

• JE

  @jean-christopheMiquel-ef3ur · 9 days ago

  Hundred years !

  1

• OV

  @ovenlovesyou · 11 years ago

  audio and visual out of sync for me

  24

• HA

  @haggaisimon7748 · 10 years ago

  Just today I was thinking of Serre as the greatest mathematician of the second half of 20 century. But then I was thinking of Grothendiek and Deligne. Add to this Wiles. Mazur is a genius, but still these guys did a lot. I'd also think of Conway and Archbacher from simple groups.

  17

• VE

  @vector8310 · 7 years ago

  Serre's writings are among the clearest expositions around.   But this lecture, compounded by muddled sound and dim  video, was like wandering through fog.

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• RO

  @rodovre · 8 years ago

  Sound is shifted.

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• TA

  @takashikashiwase3461 · 10 years ago

  thx thx

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• CH

  @christianlapointe3033 · 10 years ago

  is that Lurie in the front row?

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• ED

  @edernollivier · 2 years ago (edited)

  Yep, and with the simplex it is sovled as an evident proof.

• BA

  @Barbapippo · 5 years ago

  Out of Sync Group Theory

  1

• JU

  @Just_a_user3 · 6 years ago

  Audio and visual are out of sync

  1

• PI

  @pinklady7184 · 5 years ago

  Chalks are not white enough.

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• HI

  @Hiiii739 · 4 years ago (edited)

  In this talk, Jean-Pierre Serre says that the research papers, that were published — in the 60s, 70s, 80s -- leading towards the Classification of the Finite Simple Groups, were too long. Then what does he make of the 1000s of pages that Bourbaki published, and later EGA and SGA? Note that the entire first thirty years of Bourbaki were theories after theories without any conclusive resolution of any long standing problem. Only much later were the Weil Conjectures settled by Pierre Deligne. [This was also the reason Jean Leray left Bourbaki right at its inception]. There is more to this talk than it seems — plain politics. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Please show this comment to Barry Mazur so that he can respond appropriately.<br><br>Some background seems necessary: during the period 2008 — 10, in personal correspondence with Barry Mazur (CC’d to all then-living Fields medallists), I had promised to use tools and techniques from economics, literature, law and psychology to circumscribe modern mathematics, as practiced in academia. Being that my PhD work was in representations of finite groups, as a rejoinder, I had raised the question to Mazur, why do I think that if I studied the classics of the Western Civilization, rather than the Classification Theorem of Finite Simple Groups, I would know the classification theorem itself much deeper! <br><br>Following this correspondence, Serre and Mazur have taken it as an excuse to criticize the lengthy, prolonged work carried out by mathematicians (mostly based in America), on the classification of finite simple groups. I’m with Serre and Mazur when they criticize the finite group theorists. But I don’t want this as an excuse to pass the blame — that is, to make it look as if it is only the finite group theorists that have bad culture of mathematics, while Serre, Mazur, etc. personify the highest culture of mathematics. &nbsp;It is regrettable that John Tate who was in the audience is no more. But the rest of the worthies are still there — Mazur, Gross, Serre, Kronheimer, … The verdict of history is inescapable!

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