The Unforeseen Impact of Hyperbolic Geometry

摘要

On 15 September at the British Science Festival, in Brad-ford, Professor Caroline Series (The University of Warwick) gave the Mathematics Section Presidential Lecture, New Patterns - New Perspectives. Professor Series' lecture highlighted the limitations of the current use of Impact to measure the importance of mathematics research. Using the example of hyperbolic geometry, Caroline illustrated how much poorer we would he now if similar criteria had been implemented in the past. Hyperbolic geometry has found many important applications, but this impact could not have been imagined, let alone predicted, when it was first developed nearly two hundred years ago!