Barcamp 113rd December 2016

Luck + Curiosity Nobel Prizes (And Singapore?)

The Nobel Prizes

Sometimes NatureSurprises Us

Launches a New Field

PhysicsChemistry

Physiology or Medicine

PeaceLiterature

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in

Memory of Alfred

Very Smart PeopleHard Work

One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on Sept. 28, 1928,

I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by

discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer.

Nobel Speech: "Nature makes penicillin. I just discovered it."

His Messy Lab Penicillin : Fleming, Physiology or Medicine 1945

a brilliant researcher,

but his laboratory was often untidy

When Chain heard that he was coming, he remarked,

"Good God! I thought he was dead."

Ernst Chain Howard Florey

Oxford University1st –ever

Honorary Doctorate in Medicine Awarded to a Non-Medical Person

Norman Heatley

Ernst Chain & Howard Florey: Co-Winners with Fleming

Purify &

Mass ProducePenicillin

Lucky Stroke 1: Once - by mistake - a thousand-fold too much catalyst was added. To Shirakawa's surprise, this time a beautiful silvery film appeared.

Lucky Stroke 2:the story could have come to a sudden end, had not Shirakawa and MacDiarmid happened to meet, accidentally, during a coffee-break.

A 1000X Mistake Led to Conductive Polymers MacDiarmid + Heeger + Shirakawa: Chemistry 2000

If You Want to Screw Up, let’s Really Screw Up

How MacDiarmid, a Kiwi, celebrated the Nobel Prize

Heeger: A Risk-Taker

“One must cherish creativity,” Heeger said. “One should be bold, audacious. Seek to discover. Go into a new area, into the unknown and look for something new. The excitement of that risk is part of the thrill of a life in science.”

Any creative endeavor involves taking risks. You must not lose your nerve or you won’t hit the high C. You must not lose your nerve or you won’t be able to write the next book. Whether it’s science or music or literature or anything, creative endeavors involve risk.

Heeger: A Risk-Taker Who Never Lost His Nerve

Supplemental Information

Double Laureates – 2 Nobel Prizes for the Same Person

Pauling Had the Opportunity

to Win a3rd Nobel Prize

Watson & CrickPhysiology or Medicine 1962

Watson’s Rules: 1. Avoid Dumb People.

2. Look for the Most Interesting Person3. If you are the smartest person in the room,

you are in the wrong room

Maurice Wilkins

Watson & Crick: Physiology or Medicine 1962 Who was the 3rd person?

Frederick Sanger – Chemistry ‘58 & ‘80

http://web.mit.edu/ir/pop/awards/nobel_by_year.html

MIT 24 Consecutive Years (1993 - 2016) of Nobel Prizes

Length Breadth

ChemistryPhysics

Medicine/PhysiologyPeace

Economic Sciences

Literature

What’s Next?

Technology Progress Identified as Primary Growth Driver Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences

Robert Solow1987 Nobel Laureate

Solow calculated that about four-fifths of the growth

in US output per worker was attributable to technical progress.

Mathematics of Ideas(Worthy of a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences?)

Mathematics of Economics

Technical Progress (Solow Residual)

Mathematics of Ideas

Paul Samuelson 1970 Nobelist

Robert Solow1987 Nobelist

Ideas drive

TBD Future Laureate(s)Idea Production Function

“I think you just blew my mind”Professor Vollrath

Fields Medalists Connect Disparate Mathematics Fields (connecting ideas)

The ability to detect hidden connections between

different areas of mathematicsCedric Villani

2010 Fields Medalist 1‘

a fundamental structural connection between

elliptic curves & modular formsAndrew Wiles

2016 Abel Prize Winner 2

“Monstrous Moonshine”: (a) & (b) (a) Group Theory (monster group)

1 + 196,883 (b) Number theory (j-function)

196,884Richard Borcherds

1998 Fields Medalist

“Math is … building bridges where on one side you see more clearly

than on the other,” Duncan said. “... this bridge was so

unexpectedly powerful that before you see the proof

it’s kind of crazy.” 3

1 Birth of a Theorem: A Mathematical Adventure – Cedric Villani2 https://www.myscience.org/wire/fermat_s_last_theorem_proof_secures_mathematics_top_prize_for_sir_andrew_wiles-2016-oxford3 Https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150312-mathematicians-chase-moonshines-shadow/

Creativity Principle Resides in MathematicsLogic: A B; Imagination ∞

Logic will get you from A to B.

Imagination will take you everywhere

Imaginationis more important than knowledge

Einstein’s June 1933 Herbert Spencer lecture

at Oxford.

Fields Winners(Math Genius)

BorcherdsVillaniWiles

Creativity Mathematics

Drives

Drives?

Creativity Drives Mathematics Can Mathematics Drive Creativity?

SG Challenge Identify

How Mathematics

Drives Creativity

“It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover”

Henri Poincare

Math Revolution Enables Correctness & Creativity

Proof Assistant

Properties Connections

Univalent Foundations(for the next 1,000 years)

Enable

Math Objects(sub-set of ideas)

forMathematicians

forHumankind

Symbiotic Genius

.LT. 100K ~1 Billion Working Adults

Exploration of Creativity

Checking of Correctness

Potential Economics Nobel

Laureate(s)V. Voevodsky

2002 Fields Medalist

Math of Ideas

Voevodsky: “Very Premature” to Explore CreativityHis Statement Opens The Opportunity to Lead the World

Fields Medalist Voevodsky’s belief that it’s “very premature” to use univalent foundations

to explore creativity opens the opportunity for Singapore to

lead the world in using mathematics to drive creativity.

Receiving Princeton Mathematician JH Conway’s Advice

Picture was taken at Princeton University “Genius at Play”

A book about John Conway

OZYMANDIAS

SG1000

Ideas Can Live Longest (surpassing infrastructure & institution in longevity)

X

√

!

Lee Kuan Yew’s Name

Can Be Discerned(w/imagination)

Within This GraphicInfrastructure

Idea

Institution

? & √

Barcamp 113rd December 2016