Mathematics is not redundant

As other have said, this is a very bad idea and it is clearly disingenuous to call it an investment in AI and data science. Aside from the interrelationship between pure mathematics and the disciplines that are supposed to be replacing it, no university boosts its reputation for research by treating its researchers in this way.

Acordul

This is a very poor decision that will have negative impacts on the University of Leicester for a long time.

Please reconsider this shortsighted decision.

I am a theoretical physics undergrad at a separate university, however, I strongly feel a urge to support the action being taken to combat this outrageous claim. Pure mathematics is a huge part of my study and it’s influence on our modern knowledge is huge. The university clearly have selfish motives as the fields they have suggested to focus on in mathematics are the most lucrative. The majority of people who enter the world of research do so not in the hope of making money or profiting from it but to influence and further the field of our modern knowledge and all our futures. I understand that universities have to make money but they also need to understand that every subject matters.

It's a common mistake (by university administrators and others) to think that pure mathematics doesn't have applications (standard counter-example: number theory and cryptosystems). If one cancels pure mathematics future applications of mathematics will dry out.

This proposal is sheer folly.

The development of basic knowledge is fundamental in order to ensure the progress of all branches of sciences

Pure Mathematics lies at the foundation of mathematical science and also at the interface between mathematical science, humanity and society. A university should host science and art, and if you can't do that then don't bother with either. The title of university can be carried elsewhere.

Mathematics departments do the bulk of the "service courses" for universities, and yet we're always punished and never rewarded for this. Despicable.

This is sad news, I hope whoever is in charge will reconsider it.

You are doing yourselves significant reputational damage here - please reconsider

There is no firm boundary between pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and other kinds of science. What we have is an intricate network of scholarship whose parts are intertwined in complex ways, comprising a rich, mutually interdependent ecosystem whose global health is threatened by rash attempts at pruning. The American Mathematical Society maintains a database of publications using which one can calculate a ‘collaboration distance’ between scientists. The distance is 1 between collaborators, the distance is 2 between two people having a common collaborator, and so one. As an example, I have compiled a small list of collaboration distances between Frank Neumann, an excellent ‘pure’ mathematician in the department at Leicester, and some prominent scientists in other areas. Albert Einstein (Physicist) 5 Richard Feynman (Physicist) 5 Noam Chomsky (Linguistics) 5 Alan Turing (Originator of Theoretical Computing) 6 Leslie Valiant (Computer Scientist) 5 Jean Piaget (Psychologist) 6 Kenneth Arrow (Economist) 5 Amartya Sen (Economist) 6 John Nash (Economist) 5 Daniel Kahneman (Psychologist/Economist) 6 Michael I. Jordan (Data Scientist) 5 The specific connections between Neumann and Kahneman, for example, can also be traced as follows: Frank Neumann-Indranil Biswas-Dennis Sullivan-Benjamin Weiss-Yosef Rinott-Amos Tversky-Daniel Kahneman

Mathematics without theoretical investigation will dry up soon, leaving the AI students with a poor education.

Signing also for the plans regarding the medieval program. Incredibly short-sighted and misinformed.

I strongly support retaining pure mathematics at the University of Leicester. Vice President, American Mathematical Society

This move will not lead to the "excellence" that its designers hope to achieve.

Without its highly trained staff with their unique knowledge and skills, a university is nothing. This is a very ugly way to treat such staff who you employed in good faith to teach all of mathematics and carry out research in pure mathematics. It is also a very short-sighted move, even if all you care about is applications. Many amazing modern applications of mathematics started off with the intellectually driven research of pure mathematicians. Perhaps you don't know that the late Sir Michael Atiyah, former president of the Royal Society, after whom your mathematics building is named, was one of our greatest pure mathematicians. I am sure he would have protested most strongly against these so-called 'redundancies'.

So basically, this university is saying “we are firing artists so we can put more money into building canvases. We plan on hiring artwork tracing experts to teach our art classes. They don’t need to be taught by working artists- that’s completely unnecessary.

Very disappointed as an alumnus of Leicester to be seeing them make moves to remove the pure mathematics research there. To do so would be catastrophic for both research colleagues and students.