The Langlands program is one of the most ambitious mathematical feats ever attempted. Its symmetries imply deep, powerful and beautiful connections between the most important branches of mathematics.
It sounds plausible while he's talking, but I'm reminded of an old New Yorker cartoon, where a family of big round people is eating dinner and the little boy (or girl), whose attitude the reader understands completely, declares, "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it!" It might be that an effort of will and attention could make me understand, and I've been told that anyone can learn any level of math, but when I barely, painfully passed a trial calculus class (in 1976), my brain must have said the thing about it being spinach. It's wonderful that so many people superior to me in this can carry on and push forward, and I'm happy to enjoy the fruits of their intelligence and work --the calculator/watch/phones and C.G.I. friends and eventual antigravity skateboards and regenerated teeth and youth and perfect night-vision zoom replacement eyeballs and eventual faster-than-light colonization of the galaxy, but clearly I'm the Steve Martin character in /Pennies From Heaven/ who wishes hopelessly that he could play the saxophone (in my case, as I can play music, math).
It sounds plausible while he's talking, but I'm reminded of an old New Yorker cartoon, where a family of big round people is eating dinner and the little boy (or girl), whose attitude the reader understands completely, declares, "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it!" It might be that an effort of will and attention could make me understand, and I've been told that anyone can learn any level of math, but when I barely, painfully passed a trial calculus class (in 1976), my brain must have said the thing about it being spinach. It's wonderful that so many people superior to me in this can carry on and push forward, and I'm happy to enjoy the fruits of their intelligence and work --the calculator/watch/phones and C.G.I. friends and eventual antigravity skateboards and regenerated teeth and youth and perfect night-vision zoom replacement eyeballs and eventual faster-than-light colonization of the galaxy, but clearly I'm the Steve Martin character in /Pennies From Heaven/ who wishes hopelessly that he could play the saxophone (in my case, as I can play music, math).
ReplyDeleteI used to beat myself up for not understanding math then I read about Dyscalculia. Apparently I'm not stupid, I have a condition.
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