What makes pure mathematics so central and exciting?
Hovedinnhold
Mathematics is the study of idealised structures. All other sciences use to a greater or lesser degree these idealised structures to model the part of the world that they study. But for many (such as those of us who work in pure mathematics here in Bergen), mathematics is a science that is fun and challenging in itself. To study and explore the very idealised structures, find out their properties, how they can best be understood and described, and which idealised structures are rich, natural and fruitful to study, that is exactly what pure mathematics is about. Both here in Bergen and at other universities around the world, it is pure mathematics that attends to mathematics as an educational activity and which is the culture-bearer in mathematics.
In applied mathematics one focuses on computations, programming and modelling of nature. We in pure mathematics focus on the mathematics itself, its foundation and problems that have fascinated people for hundreds of years. Such problems can be from physics, informatics or other natural sciences, but most often come from the natural dynamics of mathematics itself. In Bergen, we have a good distribution in our education offered in pure mathematics, and offer master's degree's in the three fundamental disciplines in pure mathematics: