I am very honoured to receive a prize in this years contest. Congratulations to all the winners. To those who did not make it I say dont be disheartened. These contests are a bit like mother and baby contests and we all think our baby is the most beautiful. It is hard not to feel offended when someone elses baby is judged to be better but the judges are only human and following their own opinions. My guess is that the unknown judges are not always the high level experts we imagine them to be so the result is just one set of opinions and not necessarily the most important one. The truth is that all the babies are beautiful in their own way and we will have to wait for them to grow up before we have the hindsight to judge their real ptoential.
I suppose that I should now follow my words prior to the announcement and say that my essay was not radical enough because it won a prize. However I have to point out that they had to invent a new lowest ever fifth level of prizes and a special category of non-academic author to get me in :-) Some people are going to think that I dont fit the non-academic label bacause I have a PhD and have published in academic journals, but all of my work on this topic has been carried out independently of any academic institution over 28 years so I think it is right. I dont think I am the only prize winner that fits this description. It is good to see that top places are going to some non-FQXi members this year.
A lot of the prizes went to people who argued against the mysterious nature of mathematics in physics. Most notably the first prize to Wenmakers who argued that mathemaricians are just following the influence of the physical world. Most pure mathematicians would strongly dispute this and they are right. They are very capable of exploring abstract ideas independently of any kind of real world application yet such applications frequently appear later. The manner in which ideas from physics are unexpectedly applied to problems in pure mathematics is even more striking. The moonshine conjecture is just the most obvious example of this.
Looking forward to the next essay or video contest. Thanks to the people at FQXi who worked hard behind the scenes to make this work.