Re: File's Owner
Re: File's Owner
- Subject: Re: File's Owner
- From: Jens Alfke <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 12:51:15 -0700
On 25 May '08, at 11:58 AM, Hamish Allan wrote:
What this thread has reminded me of is an ongoing conversation I have
with a friend of mine, who refuses to countenance the square root of
minus one, because he doesn't think it means anything.
It also reminded me of the fact that Isaac Asimov never managed to
learn calculus; he said it seemed like some conceptual wall he
couldn't get over. Didn't stop him from getting a Ph.D in
biochemistry, inventing thiotimoline and positronic AI, and writing a
few hundred books on science...
I hit a similar wall in number theory, trying to understand finite
fields. I managed to visualize how they worked for an hour or two
while working on a homework set, but lost it after that, like some
ecstatic vision of Heaven shown to a mystic, which he can never
remember the details of afterwards.
In my case I dropped the class, and later my math major*. I hope that
doesn't sound too discouraging. I somehow found plenty of interesting
things to work on that didn't involve bijective isomorphisms of finite
abelian groups.
I don't know what to suggest, Jonny ... I think we've all hit the
limits of how vigorously we can wave our hands about the concept in an
email thread. Taking a break from it would be a good idea, for all of
us.
—Jens
* to be honest, the math major dropped me. I was kind of crushed,
actually. But she later saw the error of her ways, though I eventually
married an astronomer.Attachment:
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
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