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MiS Preprint Repository

We have decided to discontinue the publication of preprints on our preprint server as of 1 March 2024. The publication culture within mathematics has changed so much due to the rise of repositories such as ArXiV (www.arxiv.org) that we are encouraging all institute members to make their preprints available there. An institute's repository in its previous form is, therefore, unnecessary. The preprints published to date will remain available here, but we will not add any new preprints here.

MiS Preprint
68/2015

Object oriented models vs. data analysis - is this the right alternative?

Jürgen Jost

Abstract

Traditionally, there has been the distinction between pure and applied mathematics. Pure mathematics -- so the story goes -- discovers, creates and investigates abstract structures for their own sake, while applied mathematics applies existing mathematical tools and develops new ones for specific problems arising in other sciences. The interaction between pure and applied mathematics takes place in both directions. Applied mathematics utilizes concepts and methods developed in pure mathematics, and problems from diverse applications in turn stimulate the development of new mathematical theories. And traditionally, those problems arose within a clear conceptual framework of a particular science, most notably physics. In this essay, I want to argue that this distinction between pure and applied mathematics is no longer useful -- if it ever was --, and that the challenge of large and typically rather diverse data sets, typically arising from new technologies instead of theoretically understood and experimentally testable concepts, not only calls for new mathematical tools, but also necessitates a rethinking of the role of mathematics itself.

Received:
Oct 26, 2015
Published:
Oct 26, 2015

Related publications

inBook
2017 Repository Open Access
Jürgen Jost

Object oriented models vs. data analysis - is this the right alternative?

In: Mathematics as a tool : tracing new roles of mathematics in the sciences / Johannes Lenhard... (eds.)
Berlin : Springer, 2017. - pp. 253-286
(Boston studies in the philosophy and history of science ; 327)