[FOM] 827: Tangible Incompleteness Restarted/1

[Timothy Y. Chow]

Harvey Friedman wrote:
> But I have found a somewhat surprising reaction against graphs and 
> cliques among many mathematicians. Notable is the statement made to me 
> by a Fields Medalist when asked if they knew what a graph is. ANSWER: No 
> I don't, and I never want to know what a graph is. So the interesting 
> question here is just what did this Fields Medalist know about graphs to 
> make them never want to know what a graph is? Let me repeat for 
> emphasis:
>
> WHAT DID THIS FIELDS MEDALIST KNOW ABOUT GRAPHS TO MAKE THEM NEVER WANT 
> TO KNOW WHAT A GRAPH IS?
>
> The answer to this question should reveal a lot about the current
> mathematical environment.

The obvious way to try to find out the answer to this question is to ask 
the Fields medalist in question.  Did you try that?

Contempt for subfields of mathematics is often correlated to a perception 
that those subfields are largely disconnected from the rest of 
mathematics.  There are certainly large chunks of graph theory that are 
disconnected in this way (ironically, I'm using a graph-theoretic metaphor 
to describe the situation).  It could be that this is what the Fields 
medalist was saying.

It seems hard to believe that Fields medalist literally doesn't know what 
a graph is, unless he doesn't know what a quiver or a Dynkin diagram or a 
Bass-Serre covering tree is either.

Tim