From the American Mathematical Society today —
Robert Earl Tubbs (1954-2023)
May 15, 2023
"Tubbs, associate professor of mathematics at
the University of Colorado Boulder, died April 11, 2023,
at the age of 69. He received his PhD in 1981 from
Penn State University under the supervision of
W. Dale Brownawell. His research interests included
number theory, especially transcendental number theory,
the intellectual history of mathematical ideas and mathematics,
and the humanities."
This journal on the dies natalis of Tubbs had the third of three
posts tagged "Space and Form." Those posts dealt with European
cultural history related to Tubbs's interests. The "Space and Form"
posts, along with today's previous Log24 post, suggest a review of
the Nov. 10, 2021 post titled European Culture. An image from that post —
Those who share Cassirer's enthusiasm for myth may regard the
above Josefine Lyche version of my work as a sort of "secret writing,"
to quote a phrase of Cassirer's I find very distasteful. But there is nothing
secret about it, although there is some resemblance to written characters.
This post's title was suggested by a Salinger quote in the European Culture post.
Update on the next day, May 17 —
Further reading in Cassirer's Mythical Thought indicates that in the
passages above, on Schelling, he may be presenting a parody of
Schelling when he writes "a poem hidden behind a wonderful
secret writing." Later, on page 10, he asks, sensibly,
"… is there, perhaps, a means of retaining the question
put forward by Schelling's Philosophie der Mythologie
but of transferring it from the sphere of a philosophy of
the absolute to that of critical philosophy?"
There has reportedly been "an upsurge of interest" in Cassirer —
