Thursday, August 17, 2023

Eugenia Cheng

I've been reading Eugenia Cheng-- "How to Make Pi" and "Beyond Infinity." She is very strong at breaking down advanced mathematical concepts and explaining them with real world examples and stories.

On one hand I found this process very slow, almost tedious. On the other hand I understand these concepts (Category theory, Infinity) much better, so she has succeeded and it's difficult to argue with success.



“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” - Jean-Paul Sartre