A question: where does math sit in relation to the ecology of “premium mediocrity”? @vgr Are there premium mediocre math concepts? String theory seems to be a premium mediocre physics concept, striving to become a RealTheory of science. Does math have any PM analogs?
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan @margaretwerth
Prove me wrong? I’m probably an easy convert. I know very little about it. Read one chapter of a text 20y ago and decided the machinery was not worth the insight payoff. Snap judgment that I never revisited.
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Replying to @vgr @margaretwerth
i mean there are a lot of big serious payoffs but whether you care about those payoffs depends strongly on whether you care about fields like algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, topos theory etc. they're not super "down-to-earth" i guess
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan @vgr
One can care about say a branch of algebraic topology even if there aren’t any apparent applications now. Because there may be in the *future* - and often in math there are. Eg. knot theory. But we can also care for aesthetic reasons - it’s wondrous. Is wonder precluded from PM?
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Replying to @margaretwerth @QiaochuYuan
There’s this joke about globetrotter algebra in Futuramahttp://www.cc.com/video-clips/7ug5ye/futurama-doomsday-time …
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Replying to @vgr @QiaochuYuan
Futurama rocks! Follows in tradition of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’s “bistromath” - the idea that math works differently in restaurants, thus explaining why dinner bills always seem to add to more than what you ordered.
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You are at Berggruen now I gather? I live in LA. You writing a book about perceptions of time(I see). I wrote one about perceptions of space. Hope we get to meet one day. My next book will be about the concept of “dimensions” and what that has meant through history
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Was until May. Still in LA.
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