"several thousand in each generation" I don't understand most of Yuri Manin's mathematics, but I still find some of it interesting. "Manin: I think that peopl

"several thousand in each generation" I don't understand most of Yuri Manin's mathematics, but I still find some of it interesting. "Manin: I think that people engaged in research in mathematics today are doing so the same way it was done 200 years ago. This is partly because we don’t choose mathematics as our profession, but rather it chooses us. And it chooses a certain type of person, of which there are no more than several thousand in each generation, worldwide. And they all carry the stamp of those sorts of people mathematics has chosen." https://www.ams.org/notices/200910/rtx091001268p.pdf https://www.ams.org/notices/200910/rtx091001268p.pdf