Dear Kaz,

I don't understand your remark about "after a certain age" in your response to Vitaly.  As you know, I am very old but new ideas do occur to me. I find that trying to write about them helps me develop them. I also enjoy seeing the response to them when they are published. As for the granting mechanism, in the US it is so corrupt as to beyond repair.  As a young mathematician I received support for about 15 years, but when I deviated from the main line of harmonic analysis, it ended. I still recall the evaluation of my last proposal after more than 30 years. The author, whose style I recognized, was fulsome in his praise of my previous work but couldn't understand why I wanted to study the problems in my proposal. It takes a huge ego to judge things you don't understand.  Recent reports from participants in the panels that make awards indicate that if you have no relation to the panelists or are not interested in the  problems that they work on, you have no chance. As for open access to research, I am strongly in favor. However there are so many ways to obtain papers that it doesn't strike me as so important. Almost all journals supply authors with pdf files of their papers and you can request them directly from the author. Interlibrary loan is another convenient mechanism.

I don't think that a formalized meaning is implied by the terms you refer to. An 'Invited Plenary Speaker' is somebody who was invited to some conference to give a plenary speach. During this conference he may get a batch to indicate this. On a following conference he may participate without giving a speach at all - no special batch then. I never found such temporal distinctions used as a title outside the event.

Also with respect to the 'serious mathematician' I see no meaning implied that differs from the meaning of these words in plain language. Probably it is meant to differentiate against administrative people who have not a professional background in mathematics.

Not having particular knowledge of IMU I may hold naive views here. I certainly would be interested to read arguguments which proof me wrong.

Putting back into context if u judge a research by numerical criteria (H number or impact factor) u are NOT a serious mathematician. Most likely u r a just a stupid if powerful administrator...

Dear Doctor Ulrich Mutze,

Thank you for your answer. It seems that I have to clarify my question. One of the main key words of my question is IMU, which stands for International Mathematical Union. One cannot say much about this organization because its work usually is covered with secrecy. Recent years it is opening to the mathematical community. The letter which I attached is reflecting this fact. Once in four years IMU organize mathematical congresses and it is supposed that the authors of most important results of that period are invited to give talks and lectures. This is the theory. Of course it is not easy to realize the theory in practice. The negative point in the procedure is absolute secrecy for the vast majority of the mathematical community. That’s why I have said what I have said. Of course everybody is free to have personal opinion about who can be considered a serious mathematician and who not. It sounds very strange to me that such a delicate term is used in an open official letter of such a powerful organization.

Dear Vitaly and Patrick,

Thank you for your interest in my question. I have proposed the question in order not to forget the mentioned letter. One of the main points of the discussion in that letter is a question which has no sense to discuss among more or less professional mathematicians. Then how is it possible that so many mathematicians consider that the main criterion for evaluation of a paper is the factor number of the journal where it is published? A possible explanation lies in the interests of those people. Why a more or less established mathematician will dedicate himself to study a problem with an uncertain result if it is much easier to make variations of known results, rewrite with small modifications of not much known results or make small steps in a fashionable topic. Moreover, in this way one gains grants, recognition and prestige. Of course there always are exceptions.

Dear Vitaly,

You are right it’s “a luxury to be free in doing research”. This is the main point. If somebody has a permanent position he does not needs grants, prestige or recognition to do research, at least in mathematics. Personally I don’t understand people who after certain age are too active in publishing. The main question is why western governments are dedicating so much money of taxpayers say for investigation in pure mathematics? It is curious that governments give money if somebody promise to do certain investigation but if he indeed fulfills his promise, reflects it in a manuscript and sends it for publication then the first thing what he receives, if the paper is accepted for publication, is the copyright transfer agreement. One thinks that the result of the research is not important for the governments. Otherwise, instead of giving say one thousand grants for promise to do research they can establish one hundred prizes for best results dedicating much less money for this purpose. It will be naive to think that politicians who created those rules were stupid. Today it is not important to find the real motivation for establishing current procedure to help the investigators. It is much more important to speak about negative consequences of the procedure. Maybe we can discuss this question afterwards.

Dear Kaz,

I don't understand your remark about "after a certain age" in your response to Vitaly.  As you know, I am very old but new ideas do occur to me. I find that trying to write about them helps me develop them. I also enjoy seeing the response to them when they are published. As for the granting mechanism, in the US it is so corrupt as to beyond repair.  As a young mathematician I received support for about 15 years, but when I deviated from the main line of harmonic analysis, it ended. I still recall the evaluation of my last proposal after more than 30 years. The author, whose style I recognized, was fulsome in his praise of my previous work but couldn't understand why I wanted to study the problems in my proposal. It takes a huge ego to judge things you don't understand.  Recent reports from participants in the panels that make awards indicate that if you have no relation to the panelists or are not interested in the  problems that they work on, you have no chance. As for open access to research, I am strongly in favor. However there are so many ways to obtain papers that it doesn't strike me as so important. Almost all journals supply authors with pdf files of their papers and you can request them directly from the author. Interlibrary loan is another convenient mechanism.

Dear Dan,

It’s nice to hear from you. Let me clarify that I wrote “Personally I don’t understand people who after certain age are too active in publishing.” To me there is no contradiction. You can’t imagine how glad I am that you are not tired of mathematics and are full of energy. Your post is very valuable, you always say what you think. I appreciate much your friendship.

The following letter should be an obligatory reading for every beginner.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060106062005/http://www.math.columbia.edu/~lipyan/CrafoordPrize.pdf

 Dear George and Yiwei Li,

I would like to underline the following phrase from Grothendieck’s letter:

 “… the ethics of the scientific community (at least among mathematicians) have declined to the point that outright theft among colleagues (especially at the expense of those who are in no position to defend themselves) has nearly become a rule, and is any case tolerated by all, even in most and iniquitous cases.”

I have the impression that these negative tendencies have increased much last 10-15 years. Mathematician as a profession is under danger: why a young mathematician will dedicate his talent and time to research if  for "success" it’s more important to be a “good guy” then a good mathematician.

I must say that the community at retraction watch have this belief that the problem within mathematics is less severe than in other sciences. This reflects on their efforts towards improving the situation. We should probably be creating more watchdog bodies in particular.

http://retractionwatch.com/

 I would not use the expression "serious mathematician" as it is a tautology. All maths is serious (hard) work, so that the set of non-serious mathematicians is an empty set! 

Still, there is nothing wrong with "playing around" initially to see how things work out. Nor is it a sin to "have fun" doing mathematics. Furthermore, even the serious mathematician is allowed to make the occasional joke. 

Grothendieck initially declined his 1966 award in Moscow in protest but he later accepted it.