Opinion 188: The American Mathematical Society should not prohibit its members from to do TV commercials

By Doron Zeilberger

Written: April 1(!), 2024

I just found out that the AMS revoked the memberships of two distinguished mathematicians (who will remain nameless) who `contaminated' the `purity' of mathematics, by `selling out' and acted in TV commercials, using the reputation of mathematics for absolute certainty to promote sometimes dubious products (for example, alcohol). (e.g. see here or here or here [no longer publicly available, but see here]).

While I agree with the AMS that participating in commercials is not quite ethical, it still does not merit termination of membership. I really hope that these two brilliant former members would be reinstated.

Added April 6, 2024: Mathew Russell kindly told me about this post (that includes, at least for now, the deleted video)


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