My take on the Koblitz affair
Now that Luca, Michael Mitzenmacher, Jonathan Katz, and Oded Goldreich have all weighed in on Neal Koblitz’s critique of modern cryptography in the Notices of the AMS, I can no longer bear to be left out of the action.
My reaction is simple: we computer scientists should feel honored that the mathematicians have finally bestowed on us the level of contempt they once reserved for the physicists.
Update (9/6): If you want to understand what’s actually involved in this controversy, the best starting point I’ve found is this paper by Ivan Damgård.
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Comment #1 September 1st, 2007 at 12:03 pm
we computer scientists should feel honored that the mathematicians have finally bestowed on us the level of contempt they once reserved for the physicists.
One mathematician. He’s also not being a mathematician in this case; he’s arguing against proofs.
Comment #2 September 1st, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I’ve always thought of TCS as being a branch of mathematics (although I know from past posts that you don’t exactly share that view), so wouldn’t this be a case of the pot calling itself black?
And this may be a particularly bad spot to be bringing this up, but the 16th Carnival of Mathematics is going to be hosted over at my blog on 9/7. If any of your readers have any math or TCS-related posts that they’d like to contribute, we’d love to see them!
Comment #3 September 1st, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Well, I think TCS can be a branch of both mathematics and computer science, just as mathematical physics can be seen as a branch of both math and physics, but mean slightly different things when a mathematician and a physicist does it.
To put it mathematically, TCS is the intersection of CS and math.
Comment #4 September 1st, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I have a typo in an HTML close tag — ;<i> instead of </i> — which amazingly enough propagates to every subsequent comment.
Koblitz’s philosophy may be interesting, but these HTML quirks are really exciting.
Comment #5 September 1st, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Hmmm, HTML tags don’t nest, do they? This should take care of the problem.
Comment #6 September 1st, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Arg!
Comment #7 September 1st, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Sorry about that; fixed.
Comment #8 September 1st, 2007 at 4:46 pm
And yes, Greg, I know not all mathematicians agree with him — I apologize for indulging in Koblitzian extrapolation from special cases. 🙂
Comment #9 September 1st, 2007 at 8:02 pm
That’s OK Scott, everybody generalizes from just one example. At least, I do.
Comment #10 September 3rd, 2007 at 1:10 am
Prof. Koblitz’ writings are characterized by a level of rigor and clarity that I for one consider quite commendable. His writings go far to disprove Russel’s maxim: “A book should have either intelligibility or correctness; to combine the two is impossible, but to lack both is to be unworthy.”
If some of Koblitz’ writings are critical of established authority … well … what else should we expect of a mathematician, who learned his first serious mathematics from Serge Lang’s Algebra, while serving time for insubordination in an Army stockade?
Seldom was jail time put to better use.
Comment #11 September 3rd, 2007 at 2:22 am
To me (as a math person), the most surprising discovery is that the opinion of mathematicians actually matters to somebody.
Comment #12 September 3rd, 2007 at 3:12 am
Hi Scott,
I asked you a question in my post. Why did u just delete it without answering?
Comment #13 September 3rd, 2007 at 3:21 am
Amit, I’ve had to delete a lot of abusive, presumptuous, and/or irrelevant comments lately; I don’t even remember all of them. If you think yours was deleted in error, you’re welcome to repost.