Pure mathematics, the heart of mathematics, keeps mathematics alive and drives truly new applications. A university of Leicester's status should be part of this and cannot be considered a serious university without it.
A
Anonymous
5 years ago
Truly ridiculous.
R
Robin Wilson
5 years ago
Pure mathematics is too important, both in its widespread applications (e.g.to Covid-19) and as a central part of world culture, to be dropped from any respectable university's curriculum.
D
Dr Theodore Voronov
5 years ago
When such people talk about applications, they have no idea on which part of theoretical knowledge applications may rest upon tomorrow to begin with, and how modern day applications are founded on the whole corpus of academic knowledge of the past. Unfortunately ignorami often have power today.
F
Felipe Pait
5 years ago
The strength of a university is built on the diversity of the foundational subjects.
You can't teach engineers without pure mathematicians. I know that because I'm a professor of engineering.
U
Uwe Grimm
5 years ago
This is short-sighted and misguided - no University can claim research excellence without a strong presence in mathematics
K
Kathleen Baster
5 years ago
This is so short-sighted ... and just wrong. Pure maths has been behind so many advances in practical applications.
A
Alexander Corner
5 years ago
A ridiculous move to try this again. These are some fantastic people doing excellent teaching and research.
T
Tom Bridgeland FRS
5 years ago
Shaping for excellence, my hat! Which world-leading universities have no pure maths department? Pure Maths in Leicester has a substantial reputation in the UK and beyond for the excellence of its research. Destroying this valuable asset at a time of increased investment in the Mathematical Sciences makes no strategic sense whatsoever.
A
Alex Evetts
5 years ago
What a staggeringly short-sighted idea. Now, more than ever, we should be aware of the importance of fundamental research, and the huge benefits of interaction between pure mathematics and applied fields, in particular AI, computational modelling, digitalisation and data science.
N
Nick Monk
5 years ago
The proposed action will undermine mathematics at Leicester, including the future of applications of mathematics. It is a truism that the health and development of applications of mathematics requires a well-supported and diverse foundation of pure mathematics. Beyond the immediate impact on staff and students in Leicester, the action would have long-term impact on future students at the University of Leicester, including their employment prospects. A move to minimise the pure mathematics content in degree programmes will reduce and narrow the employability of students. Nobody benefits form this narrow-minded proposal.
D
David Yetter
5 years ago
This proposal suggests staggering ignorance of the role pure mathematics plays as an underpinning for the very areas its proposers champion. Carrying it out would destroy Leicester as a research university worthy of the name -- there is no serious research university without a pure mathematics faculty, nor has there ever been. The proposal would gut Leicester's ratings in any league table that is not narrowly focused on a single discipline, and would have follow-on effects that would lower Leicester's rating even in league tables focused on the subdisciplines favored by the proposal.
J
James Montaldi
5 years ago
Pure Mathematics is not removed from the rest of science, it is a fundamental part of it and underlies all the development of applications.
D
Daniel McLaury
5 years ago
It is absurd to think you can "ensure a future research identity in AI, computational modelling, digitalisation and data science" while axing your pure math faculty. You're trying to go the way of schools in the 1990's that changed their "Computer Science" courses to focus exclusively on practical training in Java. You know what happened to their graduates? It wasn't pretty.
R
Robert Bruner
5 years ago
This appears to be a classic case of short term thinking derided as 'killing the goose that lays the golden eggs'. These applied fields would not exist, were it not for the theoretical work done in pure maths which prepared the way. This will turn Leicester into a trade school rather than a university. If you really think that's what you want, so be it, but don't fool yourselves that you will still be a university if you do this.
T
Timothy Porter
5 years ago
The attack on fundmental research in Pure Mathematics misses the relevance of Pure Mathematicians input into the development of AI, etc., that the proposal claims to be pushing. (We had the same attack in Bangor in 2006 and lost the fight.) Many of the modern developments in those areas (such as Topological Data Analysis for instance) need much more than a basic service maths knowledge for the research to flourish.
C
Charles Nash
5 years ago
Mathematics is essential!!!!!!
S
Steffen Gielen
5 years ago
Terrible proposal. Pure maths research is the basis for everything else!
E
Eoin Butler
5 years ago
Pure mathematics is of fundamental importance in forging a path towards the ideas and technologies of the future - computer science itself only began decades ago as purely theoretical research. To destroy pure mathematics research now would gravely inhibit the unknown advances of the future.
M
Mark Yarrow
5 years ago
You cannot push the importance of mathematical careers and then try and cut entire sections of mathematics like this because they do not bring in enough grant income. This is disgusting and I expected better from this university.
Pure mathematics, the heart of mathematics, keeps mathematics alive and drives truly new applications. A university of Leicester's status should be part of this and cannot be considered a serious university without it.
Truly ridiculous.
Pure mathematics is too important, both in its widespread applications (e.g.to Covid-19) and as a central part of world culture, to be dropped from any respectable university's curriculum.
When such people talk about applications, they have no idea on which part of theoretical knowledge applications may rest upon tomorrow to begin with, and how modern day applications are founded on the whole corpus of academic knowledge of the past. Unfortunately ignorami often have power today.
The strength of a university is built on the diversity of the foundational subjects. You can't teach engineers without pure mathematicians. I know that because I'm a professor of engineering.
This is short-sighted and misguided - no University can claim research excellence without a strong presence in mathematics
This is so short-sighted ... and just wrong. Pure maths has been behind so many advances in practical applications.
A ridiculous move to try this again. These are some fantastic people doing excellent teaching and research.
Shaping for excellence, my hat! Which world-leading universities have no pure maths department? Pure Maths in Leicester has a substantial reputation in the UK and beyond for the excellence of its research. Destroying this valuable asset at a time of increased investment in the Mathematical Sciences makes no strategic sense whatsoever.
What a staggeringly short-sighted idea. Now, more than ever, we should be aware of the importance of fundamental research, and the huge benefits of interaction between pure mathematics and applied fields, in particular AI, computational modelling, digitalisation and data science.
The proposed action will undermine mathematics at Leicester, including the future of applications of mathematics. It is a truism that the health and development of applications of mathematics requires a well-supported and diverse foundation of pure mathematics. Beyond the immediate impact on staff and students in Leicester, the action would have long-term impact on future students at the University of Leicester, including their employment prospects. A move to minimise the pure mathematics content in degree programmes will reduce and narrow the employability of students. Nobody benefits form this narrow-minded proposal.
This proposal suggests staggering ignorance of the role pure mathematics plays as an underpinning for the very areas its proposers champion. Carrying it out would destroy Leicester as a research university worthy of the name -- there is no serious research university without a pure mathematics faculty, nor has there ever been. The proposal would gut Leicester's ratings in any league table that is not narrowly focused on a single discipline, and would have follow-on effects that would lower Leicester's rating even in league tables focused on the subdisciplines favored by the proposal.
Pure Mathematics is not removed from the rest of science, it is a fundamental part of it and underlies all the development of applications.
It is absurd to think you can "ensure a future research identity in AI, computational modelling, digitalisation and data science" while axing your pure math faculty. You're trying to go the way of schools in the 1990's that changed their "Computer Science" courses to focus exclusively on practical training in Java. You know what happened to their graduates? It wasn't pretty.
This appears to be a classic case of short term thinking derided as 'killing the goose that lays the golden eggs'. These applied fields would not exist, were it not for the theoretical work done in pure maths which prepared the way. This will turn Leicester into a trade school rather than a university. If you really think that's what you want, so be it, but don't fool yourselves that you will still be a university if you do this.
The attack on fundmental research in Pure Mathematics misses the relevance of Pure Mathematicians input into the development of AI, etc., that the proposal claims to be pushing. (We had the same attack in Bangor in 2006 and lost the fight.) Many of the modern developments in those areas (such as Topological Data Analysis for instance) need much more than a basic service maths knowledge for the research to flourish.
Mathematics is essential!!!!!!
Terrible proposal. Pure maths research is the basis for everything else!
Pure mathematics is of fundamental importance in forging a path towards the ideas and technologies of the future - computer science itself only began decades ago as purely theoretical research. To destroy pure mathematics research now would gravely inhibit the unknown advances of the future.
You cannot push the importance of mathematical careers and then try and cut entire sections of mathematics like this because they do not bring in enough grant income. This is disgusting and I expected better from this university.