ICM in Philadelphia

The latest newsletter from the International Mathematical Union urges mathematicians to attend this year’s ICM in Philadelphia. It will help our beleaguered collleagues in the USA by showing support, and the organisers guarantee our personal safety.

Well, I will not be there. But after moral pressure like that, I feel called on to justify my decision. So here goes.

1. I believe I do a certain amount already to support mathematicians in difficult situations. If I thought that anyone would actually be helped by my presence in Philadelphia, I would do my best to go. But I don’t think that is the case.
2. As to personal safety, the last time I was in the USA, I saw that the conductor on the train wore a gun in a holster on his hip. Later I mentioned this to an American acquaintance, who said, “That is to shoot fare dodgers”. I think he may have been joking.
3. I have been to one ICM before. I found the standard of the talks almost uniformly poor: more on the lines of “Here’s how clever I am” rather than trying to explain things to mathematicians in other fields. The honorable exception was Vaughan Jones. This was the ICM when Ed Witten got a Fields medal, and during his talk Jones explained to us what Witten got the award for. I won’t write it here, but if you are having a coffee or beer with me sometime you can ask and I will tell you.
4. The other positive thing about that ICM was meeting Persi Diaconis for the first time. I would have liked to have met him again and spent more time with him, but in the immense crush of people it was impossible to find anyone you were looking for.
5. I am now retired, and have nobody whom I can ask for financial support. In any case, I expect that air fares and other costs will be much higher by then, as a result of the Israeli/American war.
6. And last, how else can I make a token show of disapproval of the President of the United States?

Those reasons are in no particuclar order, and there are others; but I think probably the third and fifth are the ones that weighed most heavily.