4 ms·
TLDR it's 286,386,577,668,298,411,128,469,151,667,598,498,812,366 — there, saved you a click. [The above is a parody of a kind of HN comment common on long art
by svat 3y ago
TLDR it's 286,386,577,668,298,411,128,469,151,667,598,498,812,366 — there, saved you a click.
[The above is a parody of a kind of HN comment common on long articles (that wants an article to simply "answer" the headline), but this case—the numerical answer being not at all illuminating in comparison to actually reading the article—is also a clear illustration of this point from the Fields medalist William Thurston's very insightful "On Proof and Progress in Mathematics" (https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9404236 https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9404236):
> They might print out a table of the first 10,000 primes, only to find that their printout isn’t something they really wanted after all. They discover by this kind of experience that what they really want is usually not some collection of “answers”—what they want is understanding.
]
- croniev 3y agoThis is because knowledge is related to its application. It never stands for itself. The reason why we research something is because it helps us to solve a problem or do something, and thus the context is important. I quite like the definition of understanding as knowing what is possible and what is not.