Message #2696
From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: Mathematical minds
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:16:22 -0700
On 3/19/2013 11:52 PM, schuma wrote:
> — In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com, Melinda Green <melinda@…> wrote:
>> And then there are those really rare cases where someone goes in the
>> opposite direction by recognizing and describing how two sometimes
>> seemingly unrelated results share a previously unknown deep relationship.
> "Good mathematicians see analogies. Great mathematicians see analogies between analogies." – Stefan Banach
>
> Reference:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Banach
I’m going to change subject lines again to share another quote that
applies directly to our newest member’s sleeping problem, this from the
all-knowing Coxeter himself:
/"My advice to others who wish to develop creativity is to choose a<br>
problem so absorbingly fascinating that they are really happy to<br>
think about it at every available moment..." /
I had to look up the name of the anti-diagram Cabal that I mentioned
that Coxeter was up against. They were a semi-secret group of set
theorists that published under the pseudonym "Nicolas Bourbaki
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki>".
It also appears that the Bourbaki group published a generalization of
the author of your quote, Stefan Banach, so there is a direct connection
between our authors and the Cabal.
Interestingly another member was Benoît Mandelbrot’s uncle. I wonder how
they got along seeing as how the nephew made his big discovery almost
entirely due to some computer-generated images.
So what does it say that I see analogies between great mathematicians?
Not much I guess since it seems rather obvious. Still, there are some
fascinating relationships here.
-Melinda