tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post7374132604327276904..comments2023-09-11T05:46:29.728-03:00Comments on Novel Readings: How happy the lot of the mathematician!Rohan Maitzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-84495783551431975382010-03-16T09:14:40.132-03:002010-03-16T09:14:40.132-03:00I agree that there are a couple of illusions at st...I agree that there are a couple of illusions at stake here--the public idea that math is both objective and practical (the mathematicians I hear anything about are pretty clear that much advanced research in their fields is pretty much completely theoretical and about the problem, not, say, applications) and the implicit fantasy that offends "Sam" so much about the good ol' days of Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-25167376066240708002010-03-16T08:07:36.002-03:002010-03-16T08:07:36.002-03:00Oh, that quote is Auden to a T! Loathsome, as alwa...Oh, that quote is Auden to a T! Loathsome, as always, and ignorant in the way only really smart people can be ignorant. What he's longing for here is for the literary arts to return to the halcyon golden days when they were conducted high atop a tower, within site but out of reach of the miserable groundlings far below (Auden deserves twenty extra years in Hell just for that bit about 'Samhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15647399315827596767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-5630849247543539742010-03-16T00:48:40.586-03:002010-03-16T00:48:40.586-03:00The difference in attitude, as I see it, is that t...The difference in attitude, as I see it, is that the lay public is more likely to accept an appeal to mathematicians as authority than an appeal to artists or critics. People are far more willing to defer to the expertise of mathematicians and assume they know what they're doing, in part because of a belief that mathematics is a progressive or cumulative body of knowledge. You don't see Nicholashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07275014273714924786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-52772877460690398172010-03-15T21:45:03.483-03:002010-03-15T21:45:03.483-03:00Very true. Though mathematicians are in many ways ...Very true. Though mathematicians are in many ways similar to humanities folk. Especially in their concern with elegance and form.<br /><br />I suspect it is only the fetishization of numbers by our culture that protects them from more widespread derision for their lack of concern for daily practicalities in favour of elegant abstraction.<br /><br />Most people have no idea what they do but THINK JoVEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16680602039278597976noreply@blogger.com