Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Open-source mathematics...

Open-source mathematics...  Collaboration on the twin primes conjecture.  Reading the story, and how the collaboration actually worked, reminded me strongly of some of the open source projects I've contributed to.  Some of them are exciting, passionate communities, as the mathematicians working on the twin primes conjecture seem to be.  Others are more like personal projects with some interested parties as helpers, and some are almost indistinguishable from corporate projects – mainly because they're funded by corporations.  The Internet, web, and other modern communications technologies make these sorts of collaborations possible, and we all benefit.  Another that comes to mind are the extraordinary musical collaborations now taking place; I especially enjoy the a capella collaborations that are taking place by the hundreds.

Had I somehow known, 40 years ago, that the Internet and web would become what they have, I don't think it would ever have occurred to me that such collaborations would be one outcome...

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