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https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scisignal.abe4932 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scisignal.abe4932 This does a considerably better job of context/inte
by abecedarius 5y ago
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scisignal.abe4932 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scisignal.abe4932
This does a considerably better job of context/interest than the math example did.
- civilized 5y agoIt's a lot easier when all you have to do is say stuff like "heart failure is bad". What's the mathematician supposed to do, say "group theory is cool and important"?
- rsj_hn 5y agoThe thing is, mathematicians understand how cool and important it is, and that's enough. You can't really explain it to someone else -- it's like trying to explain how cool and important a piece of music is to a deaf person who doesn't know music. They see the conductor waving and say "well, that's boring." All you can do is explain "there is a whole world of beauty and meaning there. I'm sorry you can't experience it, but it's there."
- abecedarius 5y agoThe "Mathematics is Boring" author is a mathematician who seems really enthusiastic about math. He's not asking here for mathematicians to punch up their papers for nonmathematicians; he's asking them to give a bit better context for all the other mathematicians beyond the dozen others in the same sub-sub-subspecialty. This Science paper's intro/abstract sets it out for scientists, rather than for biologists in whatever subspecialty this thing is.