[Axiom-developer] Doron Zeilberger's Buchberger rant

[daly]

Full disclosure: I know Bruno Buchberger and we briefly worked on
a problem in Infinite Group Theory at City College of New York.

That said, I do think that his work ought to bring him much
wider fame and praise than it has. Doron seems to agree. I'm
not sure I'd have aimed specifically at the Austrian Academy
but Doron's opinions are what they are.

See http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg, Opinion 47

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But the MOST significant contribution by 20th-Century human
mathematicians and computer scientists was the creation of COMPUTER
ALGEBRA. It is still in a very preliminary stage, but is already
revolutionizing the way we DO and THINK about mathematics. Even
computer foes often `cheat' and use Maple or Mathematica on the
side. It is a scandal that, so far, the pioneers of computer algebra
did not get their due recognition by the mathematical
establishment. One glaring oversight, reminiscent of Godel only
becoming a professor at the age of 47, is that Bruno BUCHBERGER, the
great pioneer of computer algebra, whose algorithm revolutionized all
the spectrum of mathematics, from robotics to very abstract algebraic
geometry, does not get a tiny fraction of the recognition granted to
the Atiyahs and the Botts. He is not even a member of the Academy of
Science of his native Austria! But one should not fault this or that
specific Academy. After all, at least today, national academies
consist of members of that narrow-minded, short-sighted species called
humans. Bruno Buchberger's heritage, and his Groebner Bases will
survive long after most of the current members of the Austrian Academy
of Science will be forgotten.