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I once found a professor of medicine to be under the impression that everything in mathematics is already known.

It's probably commonplace to hear that the masses labor under that misconception.

In some contexts, one is expected to cite authoritative sources to support factual statements. If one asserts that the belief that everything in mathematics is already known is widespread among the general population, are there authoritative sources one could cite to support that?

It seems to me that if one were taking a poll, it might be difficult to phrase a suitable question in a way that doesn't give away hints.

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    Well... authoritative sources maybe, but certainly not knowledgeable sources. So who cares? If you want a knowledgeable source for the opposite cite the Mathematics professor of your choice.2012-09-27
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    @example, you've misread the question. The OP is not seeking authoritative sources that claim everything in mathematics is known, but that the layperson *believes* that everything in mathematics is known.2012-09-27
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    I would have replied that that statement is equivalent to saying that everything in medicine is known. Of course that is nonsense. Old mathematics are improved and new mathematics is being discovered/defined ...2012-09-27
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    @example : Read carefully!2012-09-27
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    I'm skeptical about your second sentence. Do you have any other reason, even anecdotal, to support your feeling that "the masses labor under that misconception"? I'd think that the masses have never even considered the statement, making the rest of your post moot, at best.2012-09-27
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    Not only I think many believe all mathematics is known, they also believe each mathematician knows all of it. I recall: I was teaching some basic math (algebra-precalculus) to a relative that was beginning university. In a hiatus, a propos a book I had over the table, I told him that it was about a mathematical area I (engineer) knew almost nothing (analytic number-theory), and he was very surprised: "Wait... you mean you don't know ALL the math"?2012-09-28
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    @RickDecker : Please read my question carefully. Essentially it says the following: "Is there some evidence, other than anecdotal, that X". So you respond by asking me whether I have some evidence, other than anecdotal, that X.2012-09-28
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    Surveys need to have a sponsor, and I'd suggest that it might be tough to find who would sponsor a survey of this type. At some level, it may be an entity encouraging education, with an eye toward promoting the fact there are discoveries still to be made. Your hypothesis is intuitively correct, it's just a matter of finding the survey you seek, right?2013-04-12
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    In my experience, there are a decent amount of people who believe that all mathematics is known, probably partially because they also believe that mathematics ends once you know "all" of calculus. More than once I've been asked whether I'm "majoring in calculus" or "what do you *do* in math research?" The misconception might stem from not knowing that there are other branches of mathematics beyond elementary calculus.2013-04-16
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    @Stahl So asking you "what do you *do* in math research" is a misconception? Ha! :)2013-05-06
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    Suppose we were to conduct a random poll of people to try to discover the answer to this question statistically. What question should we ask? The way questions are posed can skew the answers.2013-05-06
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    @Kaz haha :P well not the question itself, but the assumptions that there's nothing left to be done, or that mathematicians just sit in rooms and add numbers to find bigger numbers...2013-05-07
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    @Stahl - I appreciate your response. Not all that many years ago, a student asked me what I did as a mathematician, differentiate more complicated functions, solve harder equations. Maybe one or more of the math organizations would fancy conducting a survey to discover the degree to which people actually believe that all math is known, and, perhaps, what math researchers actually do.2013-05-14
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    People in the field of math education might have an interest in actually doing the work to conduct a good survey and in analyzing the results, but they won't know what questions to ask without a lot of really good input from mathematicians. This has to be a collaboration.2013-05-16

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