Call me an Amateur Mathematician. Not because my work is amateurish — that is, not very good — but rather in the original sense of the word: I do mathematics for the love of it, rather than for financial compensation.
After completing my PhD in 2022 I have kept the lights on at home by writing software of various forms. The realities of academia, particularly as someone from the Global South, made it difficult to justify doing mathematics for money. This was probably fortuitous: despite building much of my identity around my intention to spend my days probing the mysteries of mathematics, I am happier and less stressed than if I had to periodically justify myself to grant awarders, uncertain of which city or country I’d be living in next year.
It is also, in some sense, very freeing. In contrast to if I had a grant to study some particular topic, I can let my attention wander to anything that takes my fancy.
Naturally, however, being an amateur mathematician is much less productive than being engaged with the subject full-time. Part of this is simply scheduling. Spending 40 hours or more a week on a day-job leaves little time for deep concentration, at least once the commute, household chores, socialising and other aspects of life are accounted for. One has to be very self-disciplined to dedicate free hours to unsure, uncompensated, unfunded research rather than tuning in to Netflix, playing some Baldur’s Gate III or taking a walk around town.
External obligation helps somewhat. I still keep in touch with my former supervisor, and informally consult with him and his two current students. This has been quite productive and I am happy to say that some of the conjectures and questions I left open at the end of my thesis have been resolved due to this collaboration.
Knowing that I have a meeting with students the next day and really should understand the update email that has been languishing in my inbox for a week is an excellent catalyst to get me started reading and thinking. What always surprises me, however, is how quickly I fall into a state of flow, and how much I enjoy spending time on the subject, exploring new papers the students point out or doodling some ideas in the margins.
Perhaps I am still in a period of grieving for the loss of my plans to become a research mathematician. I tell myself I’ll go back one day, perhaps if I build up enough savings to not have to play the games of academia1. Maybe this is true. But maybe a better state to end up in is one in which I define what kind of research I want to do, what schedule to do it on and when to change tack.
Science used to be a rich man’s game. Thankfully we have made progress, both in the “rich” and the “man” axes2. This was because the leisure classes were those able to spend the time and resources to pursue it. Old-timey mathematics was also deliciously philosophical, contemplating issues like “what is an infinitesimal?” or “is maths consistent?” These are questions that are difficult to motivate to those who aren’t already heavily invested such as funding bodies. As we enter this new age of mathematics, I’m sure these questions will become more important and the place of mathematics in funded research will become harder to justify3.
Maybe it’s a good time for the return of the Amateur Mathematician.
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Though I now doubt that academia will survive in its current form until then. ↩︎
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There is a long way to go, however. ↩︎
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But absolutely we must justify it! Mathematics has never been what mathematicians have publicly claimed it to be. I posit this is because saying things like “XYZ is just beautiful” when it takes a Master’s degree to even understand what “XYZ” even is doesn’t go down well. ↩︎