Colloquium

In the early 1960's Eugene Wigner published a work entitled The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. Our talk will begin with a brief summary of Wigner's remarks. This will be followed by arguments, based on examples, which are aimed at showing just the opposite is true: there is an underlying natural force that guides central themes in mathematics toward goals of understanding basic phenomena in nature as well a wide range of everyday applications. We as mathematicians know this, but perhaps we need to be reminded by reminiscing on some of the beautiful long lines in our history. In the talk we will attempt to do this using several examples, the central one being "From planetary motion to IT-security". Perhaps this will encourage public discussion of serious mathematical themes which result in the un being crossed out of the unreasonable.