I sat in math class wishing it would end. Now I wish this woman had been my math teacher.https://www.quantamagazine.org/maryam-mirzakhani-is-first-woman-fields-medalist-20140812/ …
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Replying to @WriterobinRS
Ms Swicord, it would be a joy and an honor to share with you some of the exquisite, tantalizing wonders you would have learned from her.
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Replying to @WriterobinRS
Here's a key insight: numbers are like words. We understand new and recondite numbers by relating them to simpler, more everyday ones.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @WriterobinRS
We can't understand big numbers in any other way. We must see in them some sort of structure that reveals their kinship with small numbers.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @WriterobinRS
Otherwise, their complexity baffles and humiliates us. Our minds are simply unequal to the obscure multifariousness of really large numbers.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @WriterobinRS
We have devised a system of writing numbers, using numerals. But being able to write a large number is very different from understanding it.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @WriterobinRS
Just as we may be able to spell a word we can't define, we may string together numerals to "spell" a number whose meaning we don't know.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @WriterobinRS
The secret to the meaning of numbers is the same as the secret to the meaning of words: context. Story. Narrative. Numbers act and interact.
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Understanding a number is like knowing a person. Extensive experience of the way numbers behave confers understanding. Nothing else does.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @WriterobinRS
One thing especially deserves emphasis: numbers are beautiful. Their beauty is obscured by the usual way of representing them symbolically.
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