The importance of Mathematics

Recently Becky of Farm School posted about the importance of a comma. A comma may cost a company in Canada $2.13 million. This reminded me of a favorite story about the important of mathematics:

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From: td@research.att.com (Tom Duff)

Taylor Series - a matter of life or death

Mathematics can even be a matter of life or death. During the Russian revolution, the mathematical physicist Igor Tamm was seized by anti-Communist vigilantes at a village near Odessa where he had gone to barter for food. They suspected he was an anti-Ukrainian communist agitator and dragged him off to their leader.

Asked what he did for a living he said that he was a mathematician. The skeptical gang-leader began to finger the bullets and grenades slung around his neck. "All right", he said, "calculate the error when the Taylor series approximation of a function is truncated after n terms. Do this and you will go free; fail and you will be shot". Tamm slowly calculated the answer in the dust with his quivering finger. When he had finished the bandit cast his eye over the answer and waved him on his way.

Tamm won the 1958 Nobel prize for Physics but he never did discover the identity of the unusual bandit leader. But he found a sure way to concentrate his students' minds on the practical importance of Mathematics!

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After reading Becky's post I went looking for the above story, and had some trouble finding. I had added it as a comment on Right on the Left Coast. I am posting it here so others can enjoy the story, but also as an effort to extend my memory.


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