Talk:Langlands program

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Langlands' original program was much wider than this in scope, regardless of what's left of it today. Also the first sentence is not correct in that 'group' is singular...?

Langlands also intended to have impact beyond mathematical proofs on mathematical practice, according to some sources, e.g. Simon Singh, that's reflected in the deleted text. AxelBoldt is again out of bounds.

Where is the statement by Langlands himself?

Langlands' original program was much wider than this in scope, regardless of what's left of it today.

Please provide the relevant citation so that we can check this claim. AxelBoldt 23:09 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

I think this article needs a section on the geometric Langlands program. I don't quite know enough about it yet to write it myself, however. Etale 09:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

What this article really needs is more down-to-earth description of some of the original conjectures. It may not be accessible to high school students, but at least, there should be some desription (and yes, it's possible to accomplish!) that will make sense to general scientifically minded audience, not just people with Ph.D. in Langlands program, geometric or not. 129.15.11.123 02:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm sympathetic with the last comment. Everyone who writes encyclopedia articles should try to make them as accessible as possible.
However, the authors should be cut some slack, especially in this case. Some things on the cutting edge of research simply can't be explained well to a general audience. To explain something well you need to understand it well, and in this case we don't — that's what puts it on the cutting edge. The Langlands Program is notorious for being hard to explain to non-experts. Perhaps only 1% or so of professional, university-employed, research mathematicians have a decent grasp of what it is. 158.109.1.15 (talk) 02:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
That could well be true, but psychology teaches us that when we've bit off more than we can chew, to step back and reframe from a larger perspective. I liken this to the whole "Not Even Wrong" debate concerning the string theory "landscape" program. The argument over much of the last century for funding physics at this level was that experiment informed theory and the end result ("The standard Model") was at least suggestive of potential application. Research into "The Landscape" departs from this original social contract. It might be that society wishes to continue funding this, or perhaps not. If society does continue to fund this, it won't be for the same reasons that governed physics for most of the last century. This needs to be debated, yet many involved in Landscape research seem to resent the intrusion. Presumably with the Langlands program, elite universities are funding very smart people to invest their energies in this. What would success, if achieved, look like? What would it accomplish for society? What would it accomplish within the discipline of mathematics? It might be that there is only at present a hint or a hope that some deep result materializes. Fair enough, but not immune to explanation, no matter how abstruse the theory itself. MaxEnt (talk) 10:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)