( A sequel to Lux )
“By groping toward the light we are made to realize
how deep the darkness is around us.”
— Arthur Koestler, The Call Girls: A Tragi-Comedy ,
Random House, 1973, page 118
Robin Williams and the Stages of Math
i) shock & denial
ii) anger
iii) bargaining
iv) depression
v) acceptance
A related description of the process —
“You know how sometimes someone tells you a theorem,
and it’s obviously false, and you reach for one of the many
easy counterexamples only to realize that it’s not a
counterexample after all, then you reach for another one
and another one and find that they fail too, and you begin
to concede the possibility that the theorem might not
actually be false after all, and you feel your world start to
shift on its axis, and you think to yourself: ‘Why did no one
tell me this before?’ “
— Tom Leinster yesterday at The n-Category Café