Conclusions
A lot of the mathematics of MER is hidden and not only from the public but even from the applied scientists working on the mission. As briefly sketched above, for the scientists, this could be disastrous in a worst-case scenario. The hiding of mathematics, both in our everyday life and within science itself, is a matter not often discussed in public —which in itself is a disaster, taking into account the consequences the hiding of mathematics might have for the public. We like to think that this article may help let in some light.
Another question raised by our work is that of beliefs in mathematics. Only occasionally are the beliefs of mathematicians discussed. We found repeatedly that mathematical elements of MER are not actually considered to be mathematics among the applied scientists themselves, not on first hand anyway. Is this due to the fundamentally different views of what mathematics is between applied scientists (including engineers) and pure scientists of the 20th century? We do not know.
Finally, we comment on the nature of the mathematics involved in MER. Because of the extreme nature of a Mars mission, one might expect “extreme” mathematics, mathematics developed for the sole purpose of this mission.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
P. J. Davis. Interview with Professor Emeritus Philip J. Davis, March 6th, 2005. Recorded at Brown University, Providence, Rl.
P. J. Davis. A Letter to Christina of Denmark. EMS, pages 21-24, March 2004.
W. Folkner. Interview with Doctor William Folkner, March 17th, 2005. Recorded at JPL, Pasadena, CA.
J. Hamkins. Interview with Doctor Jon Hamkins, March 14th, 2005. Recorded at JPL, Pasadena, CA.
U. T. Jankvist and B. Toldbod. Mathematikken bag Mars-missio- nen — En empirisk undersØgelse af matematikken i MER med fokus på kildekodning og kanalkodning. Master’s thesis, Roskilde University, October 2005. Tekster fra IMFUFA, nr. 449a.
U. T. Jankvist and B. Toldbod. Matematikken bag Mars-missio- nen—IndfØrelse i den grundlaeggende teori for kildekodning og kanalkodning i MER. Master’s thesis, Roskilde University, October 2005. Tekster fra IMFUFA, nr. 449b.
U. T. Jankvist and B. Toldbod. Matematikken bag Mars-missio- nen—Transskriberede interviews fra DTU, Brown University, MIT og JPL. Master’s thesis, Roskilde University, October 2005. Tekster fra IMFUFA, nr. 449c.
A. Kiely and M. Klimesh. The ICER Progressive Wavelet Image Compressor. IPN Progress Report, 42(155):1–46, November 2003.
A. Kiely. Interview with Doctor Aaron Kiely, March 14th, 2005. Recorded at JPL, Pasadena, CA.
M. W. Maimone. Interview with Doctor Mark W. Maimone, March 17th, 2005. Recorded at JPL, Pasadena, CA.
J. Matijevic. Interview with Doctor Jacob Matijevic, March 14th, 2005. Recorded at JPL, Pasadena, CA.
M. San Martin and W. Folkner. Interview with Doctor Miguel San Martin & Doctor William Folkner, March 14th, 2005. Recorded at JPL, Pasadena, CA.
B. Toldbod and U. T. Jankvist. Reportage fra en Mars-mission.Normal 54(3): 101–115 and 144, 2006.
M. J. Weinberger, G. Seroussi, and G. Sapiro. LOCO-I: A Low Complexity, Context-Based, Lossless Image Compression Algorithm. Proceedings of the IEEE Data Compression Conference, pages 1-10, March-April 1996.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jankvist, U.T., Toldbod, B. The hidden mathematics of the mars exploration rover mission. The Mathematical Intelligencer 29, 8–15 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02984753
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02984753