He won the Albert Einstein Medal in 2013 "for his 1963 discovery of a solution to Einstein's gravitational field equations." Why hasn't Rotorua-born Shane Legg, who Time Magazine ranked as one of the Top 100 most influential people in Artificial Intelligence in the world never been knighted in NZ? Why haven't a bunch of other incredible mathematicians at the University of Auckland right now ever been knighted? By the way, nearly every one of my economics teachers in the UK has been knighted - Sir Tim Besley, Sir Tony Atkinson, Sir Steve Nickell, Sir John Vickers, and more. How many in NZ? Not one.
Could this be an underlying reason why productivity is near zero here? Aside from the low pay, NZ is not even giving status to its mathematicians & teachers who are our main hope of coming up with ways of improving productivity & helping others to do so. Who do Knighthoods & Damehoods mostly go to here? We can't spell it out, since people in high places do not want that truth to be told. What we can say is that cash-for-honours, honours for the politically well-connected, and honours for every type of sportsperson imaginable, are rife - but when it comes to knighting a chap like Kerr, who has just turned 90, and who deserves it 1000 times more than any other living Kiwi, don't even think about.
Could this be an underlying reason why productivity is near zero here? Aside from the low pay, NZ is not even giving status to its mathematicians & teachers who are our main hope of coming up with ways of improving productivity & helping others to do so. Who do Knighthoods & Damehoods mostly go to here? We can't spell it out, since people in high places do not want that truth to be told. What we can say is that cash-for-honours, honours for the politically well-connected, and honours for every type of sportsperson imaginable, are rife - but when it comes to knighting a chap like Kerr, who has just turned 90, and who deserves it 1000 times more than any other living Kiwi, don't even think about.
7 comments:
Oh really Robert, you are being so naive thinking that Dame Ardern and any of her cohert even considered recognition of anyone other than their virtual signalling mates.
Mathematicions are an essential professional group in today's world, and yet we undervalue them.
Our worst person attempting to do maths was Robertson - he couldn't do the most basic arithmetic.
That’s easy answered Rob.
How many rugby tries has our esteemed mathematician scored?
I reckon not many.
How about netball or rowing, maybe Rugbys not his thing. Any wins in any of those sports? Nope.
Well he’s got no chance of being knighted.
Maybe our talented mathematicians should redirect their creativeness by learning how to be tyrannical bullies. Turning the parliamentary lawn sprinklers on those objecting Ardern’s authoritarian rule is a sure fire right of passage to a Knighthood.
I'd imagine that if Roy Kerr published a new paper on how Matauranga was in effect the bee all and end all in Mathematics he'd be a 'Sir' by Kings birthday weekend.
Cynical, but not really outside the ball park as sad as that is, given the current state of our nations funtioning academia and socio-cultural leanings away from actual reality.
Presumably he is not maori.
Love your posts Professor. Have been sending them to my offspring celebrating my new favourite blogger. They all live and work for real money across the ditch ...of course!!!!
Our academic standards are so low and we produce so few STEM graduates compared with the soft sciences, that there is little appreciation for or understanding of brilliance or real academic endeavour.
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