by Gian-Carlo Rota The subjects of mathematics, like the subjects of
mankind, have finite lifespans, which the historian will record as he
freezes history at one instant of time. There are the old subjects,
loaded with distinctions and honors. As their problems are solved away
and the applications reaped by engineers and other moneymen, ponderous
treatises gather dust in library basements, awaiting the day when a
generation as yet unborn will rediscover the lost paradise in awe. Then
there are the middle-aged subjects. You can tell which they are by
roaming the halls of Ivy League universities or the Institute for
Advanced Studies. Their high priests haughtily refuse fabulous offers
from eager provin- cial universities while receiving special permission
from the President of France to lecture in English at the College de
France. Little do they know that the load of technicalities is already
critical, about to crack and submerge their theorems in the dust of
oblivion that once enveloped the dinosaurs. Finally, there are the young
subjects-combinatorics, for instance. Wild- eyed individuals gingerly
pick from a mountain of intractable problems, chil- dishly babbling the
first words of what will soon be a new language. Child- hood will end
with the first Seminaire Bourbaki. It could be impossible to find a more
fitting example than matroid theory of a subject now in its infancy. The
telltale signs, for an unfailing diagnosis, are the abundance of deep
theorems, going together with a paucity of theories.
