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"In Mao's China, Politically Correct Math," by Barry Cipra. Science, 28 February 1997, pages 1264-1265.
Mathematical historian Joseph Dauben, in doing research for a biography of the mathematician Abraham Robinson, came upon an unusual historical twist. Robinson developed the mathematical area called nonstandard analysis, and it was taken up by Chinese mathematicians during the Cultural Revolution. While many intellectuals were persecuted in this period, some mathematicians were protected by studying nonstandard analysis, which was deemed to be in line with the thinking of Mao and Marx. This article describes Dauben's lecture on this topic presented at the Joint Mathematics Meetings held in January in San Diego.
