Log24

Yesterday's 11 AM post Mad Day concluded
with a link to a 2001 American Mathematical Society
article by Pierre Cartier that sums up the religion and
politics of many mathematicians…

"Here ends the infancy narrative of the gospel…."

"… while Simone Weil's Catholicism was violently
anti-Semitic (in 1942!), Grothendieck's Buddhism
bears a strong resemblance to the practices of
his Hasidic ancestors."

See also Simone Weil in this journal.

Note esp. a post of April 6, 2004 that provides
a different way of viewing Derrida's notion of
inscription .

A perceptive review of Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life—

"Page 185: 'Whatever else we are, we are also mad.' "

Related material— last night's Outside the Box and, from Oct. 22 last year—

"Some designs work subtly.
Others are successful through sheer force."

Par exemple—

See also Cartier in this journal.

The Cartier link leads to, among other things…

“A Mad Day’s Work: From Grothendieck to Connes and Kontsevich.
The Evolution of Concepts of Space and Symmetry,”
by Pierre Cartier, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society ,
Vol. 38 (2001) No. 4, pages 389-408