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For those interested, A Mathematician's Apology is available online here: http://www.math.ualberta.ca/~mss/misc/A%20Mathematician's%20Apology.pdf http://www.ma

by andreyf 19y ago

For those interested, A Mathematician's Apology is available online here: http://www.math.ualberta.ca/~mss/misc/A%20Mathematician's%20Apology.pdf http://www.math.ualberta.ca/~mss/misc/A%20Mathematician's%20... YouTube links to the first episode of the series "Connections 1" (from 1978): 1/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTbCNycm0nQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTbCNycm0nQ 2/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlKykc6ipY4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlKykc6ipY4 3/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIVnaq0spdE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIVnaq0spdE 4/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNPL92tvqhY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNPL92tvqhY 5/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnRZ18GpOhg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnRZ18GpOhg The rest are on YouTube also, as well as bittorent: http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4039213/BBC_-_Connections_-__Complete__History__Science http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4039213/BBC_-_Connections_-__Com... Depending on whether or not you think paying ~$500 for them would serve "to promote the progress of science and useful arts", you might be legally obliged to buy them on Amazon.

Alex3917 19y ago
I just read A Mathematician's Apology. Really interesting, it really puts Hesse's Glass Bead Game in context.
- tel 19y ago
  A Mathematician's Apology is a beautiful read, by definitions both plain and, to some degree, those elaborated in the essay itself. One interesting thing about the relevancy of the essay is the potential change in the aesthetics of mathematics in wake of the proof of the Four Color Theorem. Personally, I have to believe that some day someone will find a proof that has all the elegance mathematicians are looking for. "We do not want many ‘variations’ in the proof of a mathematical theorem: ‘enumeration of cases’, indeed, is one of the duller forms of mathematical argument. A mathematical proof should resemble a simple and clear-cut constellation, not a scattered cluster in the Milky Way." If you consider his constant foil in Chess, it's fun to think that perhaps he'd see some degree of beauty in computer algorithms that solve the many enumerations of chess in far more "general" and "surprising" ways.

by andreyf 19y ago

Alex3917 19y ago

I just read A Mathematician's Apology. Really interesting, it really puts Hesse's Glass Bead Game in context.

tel 19y ago
A Mathematician's Apology is a beautiful read, by definitions both plain and, to some degree, those elaborated in the essay itself. One interesting thing about the relevancy of the essay is the potential change in the aesthetics of mathematics in wake of the proof of the Four Color Theorem. Personally, I have to believe that some day someone will find a proof that has all the elegance mathematicians are looking for. "We do not want many ‘variations’ in the proof of a mathematical theorem: ‘enumeration of cases’, indeed, is one of the duller forms of mathematical argument. A mathematical proof should resemble a simple and clear-cut constellation, not a scattered cluster in the Milky Way." If you consider his constant foil in Chess, it's fun to think that perhaps he'd see some degree of beauty in computer algorithms that solve the many enumerations of chess in far more "general" and "surprising" ways.