“On Proof and Progress in Mathematics”
On an offhand comment from David Corfield I’m reading through this essay by William Thurston from 1994. As usual he speaks very eloquently and directly about his thoughts on the subject, but I was struck by this passage:
We need to focus far more energy on understanding and explaining the basic mental infrastructure of mathematics—with consequently less energy on the most recent results. This entails developing mathematical language that is effective for the radical purpose of conveying ideas to people who don’t already know them.
I’m pretty sure anyone who reads my own scribblings with any regularity would tend to agree.
Well I guess I’ll take this opportunity to boost my own(at this moment rather sparse content wise blog). I have a link to some rather interesting and elegant lectures on mathematics You might find interesting. It is a lecture given by Timothy Gowers on progress in mathematics. If you haven’t already seen it, it is a very well done lecture that is at a level that non-mathematicians can understand, and mathematicians can relate to.
http://josephhardinee.wordpress.com/2007/06/18/a-very-elegant-lecture/
You can safely put me down as being in full agreement with that!
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