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From Davis and Hersh's excellent book "The Mathematical Experience": Professor John Wermer tells the story of how, when he was an undergraduate, he took a cour
by mturmon 14y ago
From Davis and Hersh's excellent book "The Mathematical Experience":
Professor John Wermer tells the story of how, when he was an undergraduate, he took a course in projective geometry from Oscar Zariski, one of the foremost figures in the field of algebraic geometry. Zariski's course was exceedingly general and Wermer, as a young student, was occasionally in need of clarification. "What would you get," he asked his teacher, "if you specialized the field F to the complex numbers?" Zariski answered, "Yes, just take F as the complex numbers."
- StavrosK 14y agoCan I get a joke explanation at aisle 2? :p
- mturmon 14y agoThe student doesn't understand the general result, so asks for an explanation in a simple special case. The teacher fully understands the general result, and sees through to the special case like light goes through glass. So he just says yes, that's the special case, and sees no need to elaborate, because establishing the correspondence of the general to the specific is too obvious to bother putting in to words.
- StavrosK 14y agoAh, I see, thank you for the explanation.