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The final paragraph is my favorite. I have a PhD in mathematics but I've since realized I'm not a mathematician, I'm more of a logician/philosopher. I find the
by xamuel 8y ago
The final paragraph is my favorite. I have a PhD in mathematics but I've since realized I'm not a mathematician, I'm more of a logician/philosopher. I find the parable very interesting, but I can totally believe a lot of real mathematicians don't. Too many mathematicians, if you crack open a random page of their work, you'll see lots of opaque integrals and calculations. None of that ever appealed to me. Even when I was the top of the class among undergraduate mathematics majors, I was basically doing the bare minimum I could get away with of that kind of "grind", and focusing all my time and passion on things more closely resembling this kind of "parable".
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- contravariant 8y agoI don't think he was saying mathematicians don't find it interesting because it lacks sufficiently convoluted mathematics. Rather a 'true mathematician' (who by definition ignores all practical considerations) would find it unsatisfactory because the problem of finding a way of allowing toilet-less carriages is solved by not allowing toilet-less carriages. Frankly I think they should have just put the toilet in the middle of the toilet-carrying carriages, but maybe I'm weird.