%Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 20:20:45 +0200 (METDST)
%From: Arnold Vladimir <arnold@pi.ceremade.dauphine.fr>
%
%This is the translation of my article published in
%the Moscow tabloid "IZVESTIA" the 16th January 1998 
%made by M.Grinfeld.
%    V.Arnold
%
%******************************************************
\documentstyle[11pt]{article}

\title{Innumeracy and the Fires of the Inquisition}

\author{V. I. Arnol'd}

\date{28 January 1998}

% \setstretch{2.0}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\begin{sloppypar} 
%
  
We live in an insane world, in which most governments behave like the pigs
under an oak tree in the fable by Krylov, both eating the acorns and digging
up its roots, thus destroying the source of their very sustenance.
  
With the (temporary?) cessation of military confrontation between east and
West, the funding of science in Russia has been virtually discontinued.
Experts say that during the last 10 years it has decreased seventeen-fold
and stands now at one-fourth of the level required for its mere survival.
The spending on education decreased from 7\%\ of the GDP in 1970 to 0.6\%\
in 1997 (with further reductions planned for 1998).

These madmen, who are literally chopping off the branch they are sitting on,
finance, if at all, only ``applied'' sciences, whose benefits can be
immediately seen.  As the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS)
Y. S. Osipov put it, they think it will be easier to gather apples by
cutting down the apple tree.

Louis Pasteur (who can hardly be accused of conducting studies of no use to
humanity) taught that there is no ``applied science'', but only applications
of science.  Experiments with amber and cat fur must have seemed useless to
the rulers and military leaders of 18th century.  However, precisely these
experiments turned our world upside down once Faraday and Maxwell came up
with the equations of electromagnetism.  These achievements of fundamental
science repaid with interest all the expenditure on science for many
hundreds of years.  Refusing to honour the debt to science is a surprisingly
shortsighted policy of modern governments.  The punishment for it will be
the technological (and hence both economical and military) underdevelopment
of countries pursuing this policy.

The damage inflicted on Russia by the destruction of fundamental science
which is taking place before our eyes can only be compared with the harm
caused by the fires of the Inquisition to Spain and Western civilization as
a whole.

Branches of science, which for many years were a source of our pride, such
as mathematics, find themselves in a particularly grievous state. According
to the calculations of Academician L. D. Faddeev, the Secretary of the
Mathematics Section of the RAS, spending per year on the entire mathematical
science in the FSU was equal to the cost of a single tank, whereas the
current expenditure on mathematics in Russia is about a tenth of the cost of
a tank.  Fundamental sciences like mathematics require a negligible amount
of money and yet there is no allocation for it in the Russian budget.

According to a survey conducted by the RAS Institute of the
Social-Economical Problems of Population and paid for by the Central Bank,
in October '96 the total savings held by the Russian population were worth
more than US \$140B. This is approximately 3 times the previous government
estimate.  That means that nearly US \$100B have been generated by crime. 
Compare these US \$100B with the ***RAS*** budget of approximately US
\$.5B/year (the budget of the Mathematics Section is a small part of that
sum).

From the point of view of a mathematician, all people belong to one of two
classes: those who like to subtract and divide, or those who prefer to add
and multiply.  The work of scientists contributes to the growth of national
wealth, and the attitude of society towards scientists in other countries is
somewhat different from ours. It is impossible for a scientist to survive
with the salaries we get here.  The salary of a Professor at the Institute
of Mathematics of the RAS (such as myself) is less than US \$100 per month.
This is approximately one hundredth of the salary of my American peers.  The
Army Research Office and Defense Advanced Research Project in the US have
demanded an increase of more than 12\%\ in the mathematics budget in '98 (as
compared with '97).  A possible reason for that may be the convincing
victory of China and Iran at the last International School Mathematics
Olympiad.  These countries have done better than both the US and Russia. 
This might have happened because China and Iran have to produce strong
mathematicians for their nuclear and missile industries.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The survival of mathematics in Russia (and of other strong scientific
schools), and the fact that there still are great scientists and teachers in
Russia who refuse to emigrate and are doing all they can to foster the
talents of a new generation of students, are a testimony to a form of
``heroism'' (or, from the point of view of our Western colleagues, of
stupidity) long a tradition of the Russian intelligentsia.  But this state
of things can not continue indefinitely.

Amazingly, the RAS, Moscow State University and society as a whole manage to
find funds for anti-scientific nonsense such as parapsychology, and to
support the publication of works by people of a ``nonstandard historical
orientation'' tending toward fascism. Ignoramuses are regaled with pearls
such as: ``Cancer, incurable psychiatric illnesses and other chronic
diseases of children and adults arise as a result of placement of beds at
the nodes of intersections of pathogenic zones'' of geological origin, that
allegedly cover the Earth with grids of the size of 2.5m, 3.75m and 7.5m,
respectively (Vestnik RAN, 1996 \#6, pp.  713-719).  The powers that be
always have money for nonsense like that.  It is significant that Hitler
also encouraged pseudo-science.

The traditionally high level of Russian mathematics has always had its
foundation in a solid high school education.  It even withstood the attempt
to introduce the formal, axiomatic-scholastic approach into schools in the
late 60s.

Unfortunately, the level of numeracy of the country as a whole is now
falling catastrophically.  The ``humanization'' and ``humanitarization'' of
education being planned by the Russian Ministry of Education involves a
drastic reduction of the mathematics curriculum and the transfer of the
resulting extra class hours to new subjects such as macram\'e and
horse-breeding.

It seems that the Ministry is trying to bring our traditionally good
mathematical education down to the level (a traditionally low one) of the
mathematical education in the US, exactly at a time when the Americans are
beginning to adopt our experience to improve radically their mathematical
education, with the intention of making it the best in the world.

It is somehow ridiculous to have to prove that every civilized person needs
to be numerate: only savages think that bread comes down from the sky, that
cars have always existed, and that there are no benefits from having
airplanes.

A numerate person immediately understands the meaning of the statement that
life expectancy for males in Germany is now over 80 years, while in Russia
it is close to 60 years.  The 10 year drop of life expectancy in the
countries of the former Soviet Union is equivalent to the simultaneous
execution of approximately 80 million people (in terms of loss of
man-years); in Russia alone the number is about 40 million.  (Lemma: when
communists put you to death, you lose on the average a half of your expected
lifetime.)

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Even more important than the ability to add fractions is the fact that a
basic acquaintance with mathematics allows one to distinguish a correct
argument from a faulty one.  Without this ability, a society turns into a
herd, easily manipulated by demagogues.  According to Western experts, in
the current situation in Russia, the assumption of power by a Hitler is even
more likely than it was in Germany in the 1920s.

It is worth mentioning that a mathematical education by itself is not a
panacea.  It will not cure political sloppiness and indiscrimination, nor
will it protect from the virus of arri\`erism. For instance, the
anti-Semitic tabloid ``Vremya'' (``Time''), published by the Union of the
Russian People has on its editorial board a ``pseudointelligent'' ({\em
obrazovanets}, a perjorative word coined by Solzhenitsyn), who is a member
of the RAS Mathematics Section and of the US National Academy of Sciences. 
During the recent elections a glossy special section of this tabloid (\#45
'97) was delivered to almost every mail box.  Along with a catechism
suitable for our times (Q:``What was the name of Berezovski's father?'' A:
``Abraham''; Q:``Who rules Russia?'' A:``the Mafia'') in its crossword, it
states that 21\%\ of the number 173.3 is 30.4.  But even 17*2 equals 34,
which is already greater than 30.4. This means that neither the author, nor
the editors, nor the proof-reader could manage fractions or percentages.

Whether our next ruler will be the Mafia or a charismatic nationalistic
extremist (as is predicted by the head of the Department of Political
Science of the MSU, who also calls for a struggle against the US, a struggle
which ``will require great courage and the ability to take risks'', and
which will most likely be of a ``military-strategic'' nature (Vestnik RAN,
1997, p.  1017)), the basics of fractions and percentages are absolutely
essential in modern society. The future of a Russia in which the study of
fractions is replaced by macram\'e appears bleak.

Of course, the impact of the destruction of the mathematical culture will
not be immediate.  But the example of Germany (which, having to repair the
damage caused by the Nazis, still lags behind other countries) shows that
the preservation of high scientific and educational standards in Russia
should be a strategic problem of the utmost urgency.

If this problem is not addressed in the near future, we will find ourselves
for decades, if not forever, in the position of a fourth world country, and
Russia will be remembered as people remember the once famous and forever
lost Empire of Alexander the Great.

In my opinion we should combine a massive increase of the state support with
the creation of a system in which investment in science and education is
made attractive to entrepreneurs and financiers.

\end{sloppypar}
\end{document}
