you ever read a mathematician’s biography and get jealous of all the nonmathematical parts like the part where they acquired the patronage of catherine the great or the part where they had to be exiled from paris for unstated political reasons
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nothing interesting has happened to a mathematician since WWII. this is only a slight exaggeration
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if you haven’t been exiled from paris for unstated political reasons you’re not taking enough risks i guess
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The story of Evariste Galois always boggled my mind, planning uprisings and throwing back champagne with Dumas while revolutionizing algebra, only to die in a duel at age 20.
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This write up covers most of his life, but I recommend diving deeper:
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I value sleep far too much to be jealous of Euler’s patronage by Catherine the great
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Marquis Nicolas de Condorcet. 25 March 1794 flee from Paris. Two days later Two days later, arrested in Clamart when he was asking an omelette "made by 12 eggs" in a restaurant.
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He was imprisoned in Bourg-la-Reine and was dead there at 29 mars 1794, in a house just 20 meters from the house where would be born Evariste Galois, 17 years later.
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As someone who reads a lot about mathematicians of old in order to write popular accounts, I strongly disagree with this
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I have found that mathematicians then and now are mostly normies
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