[HN Gopher] The Mysterious Disappearance of a Revolutionary Math...
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The Mysterious Disappearance of a Revolutionary Mathematician
Author : Anon84
Score : 71 points
Date : 2022-05-11 11:19 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| dboreham wrote:
| Schonfinkel I believe also disappeared.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| I find his life fascinating, from mathematical genius to hermit
|
| Just as a note, le Chambon sur Lignon isn't in the Alps but in
| the mountainous parts of central france
| dzdt wrote:
| Somewhat clickbait title: Alexander Grothendieck is the
| mathematician for anyone who might already know about this.
| [deleted]
| photochemsyn wrote:
| _"...he described scientists and mathematicians as the most
| dangerous people on the planet, because they carelessly put
| destructive technological power in the hands of politicians. "_
|
| This is indeed true. There's another side however, in that
| scientists and mathematicians have also put creative
| technological power in the hands of ordinary people. Perhaps a
| more nuanced view is that authoritarian states controlled by
| politicians are the most dangerous systems of all.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| > authoritarian states controlled by politicians are the most
| dangerous systems of all
|
| Checks in these times
| lostmsu wrote:
| For those who don't like the long form:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| thablackbull wrote:
| Anyone have a good suggestion of a mathematics textbook that
| would help me learn 'from the ground up so to speak' like how the
| article mentions, "He spoke of his mathematical work as the
| building of houses, contrasting it with that of mathematicians
| who make improvements on an inherited house or construct a piece
| of furniture."?
| bitexploder wrote:
| https://www.susanrigetti.com/math
|
| Great overview.
| fgh wrote:
| I am curious why a curriculum in the US includes four courses
| on calculus. Why isn't this just part of maybe three analysis
| courses for undergraduate studies?
| zmgsabst wrote:
| My university had quarters, not semesters, but:
|
| 1. Derivatives
|
| 2. Integrals
|
| 3. Applications -- function approximation; solids of
| rotation; vectors; etc.
|
| 4. Multivariate -- partial derivatives, multiple integrals,
| etc.
|
| Glancing at a nearby community college's course catalog,
| they have similar split.
| fgh wrote:
| Does this include the full machinery to prove the
| necessary theorems or are these basically practical
| courses?
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Those are practical courses, meant to prep for linear
| algebra and differential equations -- and various STEM
| tracks. As I recall, there were some proofs (eg, limits
| showing derivative rules; limits showing sums for
| integral rules).
|
| We covered all the proofs in real analysis 1
| (derivatives; sequences) and 2 (integrals; measure).
| AlanYx wrote:
| That's a great page. Would you happen to know of a similar
| type of resource for statistics?
| ninly wrote:
| This site is not as ground-up or comprehensive as Susan
| Rigetti's page, but I have found it useful:
| https://statisticsbyjim.com/
| brooke2k wrote:
| https://venhance.github.io/napkin/Napkin.pdf
|
| This textbook (work in progress but mostly complete) is an
| attempt to do exactly that: start at foundational math like
| group theory and topology and build up to higher and higher
| levels of math.
|
| I worked through the first few chapters a while ago, and it's
| very good. My only issue is that sometimes he assumes knowledge
| of things that I didn't know about, but cursory googling was
| good enough for those situations.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Grothendieck spoke of problem-solving as akin to opening a hard
| nut. You could open it with sharp tools and a hammer, but that
| was not his way. He said that it was better to put the nut in
| liquid, to let it soak, even to walk away from it, until
| eventually it opened.
|
| This is a lovely way of looking at solving hard problems as a
| life-project, instead of a rushed performance. There's a
| pernicious pressure in academia for students to be world-class
| before they're 25, whereas I think the best insights seem to pop
| out quite naturally after putting them in the background for 10
| or 20 years.
|
| I have not met many brilliant mathematicians, but a few do seem
| especially sensitive to wounding by the ugliness in the human
| condition. It's a shame both Alexander Grothendieck and Theodore
| Kaczynski didn't find ways to tough it out against the ugliness
| instead of succumbing to withdrawal or anger - because truth is
| the greatest weapon against the violence of ignorant tyranny.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| > truth is the greatest weapon against the violence of ignorant
| tyranny.
|
| Do you see this work in practice?
|
| All I see is a dead internet filled with AI-generated fake
| detritus-like content, attention and behaviour manipulation,
| all sorts of dark patterns.
|
| Truth alone doesn't come close to protect you against ignorant
| violence. Ignorance is multiplied by tech at much higher
| multiple, simple because there is often little profit in
| spreading the truth.
| dmos62 wrote:
| To be fair, even if knowledge does not win over ignorance,
| that doesn't mean that knowledge isn't the greatest weapon
| against ignorance.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Do you see this work in practice?
|
| Sure. I see it in every child cured of cancer because the
| truth of Fourier means that Positron Emission Tomography can
| zap a tumour. I see it when people dance to music because the
| truth of electrodynamics and sampling theory mean artists in
| a studio can make a record for millions of others to enjoy. I
| see it when people are warm in their homes because Einstein's
| truth about matter and energy means they have electricity.
| The world around us is literally a triumph of truth.
|
| > All I see is a dead internet filled with AI-generated fake
| detritus-like content, attention and behaviour manipulation,
| all sorts of dark patterns.
|
| You're looking at it wrong. What you see is a group of sad
| little people who betrayed technology to assuage their own
| inadequacies. They mostly took what other much smarter people
| invented to make sordid little businesses out of leveraging
| ignorance. The world is catching up with them and their
| deeds, mark my words.
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