I'm a mathematical physicist who likes explaining stuff. I'm the Maxwell Fellow of Public Engagement at the School of Mathematics and the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh.
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2026-08-25T16:59:13Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Realizing more and more how modern-day AI taps into some very old urges. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Yet again, Mastodon helps me crack my math problems. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez BIOMIMETIC TECHNOLOGIES npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez In 2022 the Spanish parliament recognized the legal personhood of a lagoon called the Mar Menor, thus making it the first ecosystem in Europe with its own rights. This follows similar decisions in some other countries: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Kings Day shows yet again that the least powerful Americans are the most courageous. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…j9f5 - the Choctaw don't own most of the land over which they have jurisdiction, and I can't quickly find out how much land they do own. So far they seem to be doing solar on a smaller scale: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez As confirmed by a 2020 Supreme Court decision, 15% of Oklahoma is under jurisdiction of the Choctaw Nation. Now the Choctaw have used their power to prevent ICE from getting a big detention center! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez The proton, 1836 times heavier than the electron, is made of two up quarks and a down, with two of their spins aligned and one pointing the other way. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez The arXiv is separating from Cornell University, and is hiring a CEO, who will be paid roughly $300,000/year:[email protected] . The salary is expected to be around $300,000, though the actual salary offered may differ. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Have you read There Is No Antimemetics Division? Would I like it? npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez In the northern hemisphere, the sun moves clockwise in the sky. This is why clocks, which were based on sundials, have hands that move clockwise. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…uv8h - Yes, leaving out extra terms in the Euler product formula for the Riemann zeta function tends to smooth it, because those extra terms induce more rapid oscillations. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Even if we go up to 1000 ≤ x ≤ 1100, we see the simple function npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez It's a bit surprising that even on the so-called 'critical line' where s = ½ + ix for x real, the Riemann zeta function ζ(𝑠) looks a lot like the much simpler function npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…fd79 - thanks, all this is very interesting! I agree wholeheartedly that the Fourier transform of npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…920r npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez It's a lot easier to do the Fourier transform of the zeta function without absolute values around it, since we can take npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…gvxt @nprofile…920r - yes, you can call some of them overtones. But I'm not sure that's the full explanation of the pattern we're seeing here! It should be related to the continued fraction expansion of ln(3)/ln(5) - or in other words, which powers of 3 are close to powers of 5. I showed that's part of the story. But I don't know the full story. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez So far I've been trying to understand the complicated waves in the function npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez For starters, neither npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Aha! 💡 npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…uv8h - Nice! Thanks! So far I'm entranced by its values on the critical line, and haven't dared venture off that line - since I don't know how it would help me. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Now I think I see why the distance between crests of the big long waves in this graph is about 85.84! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…3dur - I saw those too, and I'm trying to understand them, but I hadn't noticed that there were 3 interlocking waves. So thanks for pointing that out: that's important. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…zkp2 - you're right - thanks! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez More interestingly, the fact that 2/3 is a good rational approximation to ln(3)/ln(5) says that npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez The slow 'beats' in the absolute value of the zeta function npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…3n8d - umm, no, because no commtuative ring where 1+1 = 0 embeds in any commutative ring without that property, and none without that property embeds in one that does have that property. This is why commutative algebraists (dually known as algebraic geometers) divide the world into different 'characteristics'. A ring of characteristic n has 1 + 1 + ... + 1 = 0 where you sum n ones. They especially like fields, and for fields each field either has characteristic p for some prime p or 'characteristic zero', meaning no sum of 1's can equal zero. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…3n8d - if the rings are "too infinite", like the ring of continuous real-valued functions on the real interval, the sum in the definition of the Hasse-Weil zeta function doesn't converge and we should probably leave it alone. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez In the graph here, the sharp peaks seem to be spaced by a distance of npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez To get a better picture of the *slow* oscillations in npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez There are fascinating connections between the Riemann zeta function and music theory. I'll probably write a paper about this, but I can't resist talking about a little piece of the story. I will *not* explain what this has to do with music, since I want to tell that exciting story later on, and do a really good job of it. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez This fairly dumb article in a magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers claims there's a "crisis" at Wikipedia because the editors rejected a push for AI summaries of Wikipedia articles. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…84yf - it would be cool if some far-out Mayan priest dreamt up the 20-adics! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Math is everywhere. Here's a tale where a bit of number theory let a couple of archeologists, Marion and Matthew Stirling, figure out that the Olmec civilization was incredibly old. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…nuf5 - yes, in physics (and elsewhere) it's important to have, for each fact, not just a bit saying whether you believe it or not, but a little file recording the evidence for or against it. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…3mqd - are you trying to tell me something? npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…xdkd - we might have a lot to talk about. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Gro-Tsen continues: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Gro-Tsen writes: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez 30 years later a farmer found the other half of the rock and confirmed Marion Stirlling's guess: yes, the date was September 3, 32 BC! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez People used to think the Olmecs, who made those colossal stone heads, were not very old. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez The problem with archeologists is that the successful ones get a big head. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…h6a3 - thanks, I'll check out this show in preparation for my own pilgrimage! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…8qh7 @nprofile…xdkd - I used to read Gene Ward Smith on sci.math and such, but I never paid much attention to his tuning theory stuff. I feel terribly sorry that I didn't, since he died of COVID in 2021: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez My god! What an amazing blog article! For the last few weeks I've been studying the work of Gene Ward Smith, who discovered a connection between muic theory and the Riemann zeta function. But it turns out @nprofile…xdkd has been thinking abou this for years... and what she has discovered is much richer and more beautiful than I had imagined. This changes everything! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…uk82 - scarlet macaws in New Mexico? Or cacao? npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez For more on parrots and scarlet macaws at Chaco Canyon: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez For more on chocolate at Chaco Canyon: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Chaco Canyon should be called Choco Canyon, because researchers have found traces of *chocolate* in cups found at this site dating back to 1000 - 1125 AD. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…l7vu - thanks, that was a great listen. I'm planning to do a lot of study before visiting various sites this spring. This video was a good springboard toward digging deeper into these matters, because it situated Chaco in an interacting network of different cultures. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…xuq7 - nice! It looks like a rocket-fuel-propelled approach to algebraic geometry where he talks about zeta functions and cohomology theories on page 3 and then gets serious. 😆 npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…xuq7 - Oh great! I haven't ever looked at a book by Raskin, in fact I don't even know the name Raskin. But I've been thinking there should be an approach to algebraic geometry that goes like this. I only heard about this approach long after I suffered through the Hartshorne approach (listening to people talk about it, not actually studying it very hard). npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…xuq7 - Neat! I was just joking: I actually skipped commutative algebra entirely myself, too - I just zoned out whenever anyone tried to explain this stuff to me. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez If like me you slept through part of your algebra class and spent years later trying to catch up on algebraic geometry, this is the thread for you! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…a3ey - it's a great read, though not all at once. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…jrcx - it looks like an error-ridden text. Throw it out and get a better book on number theory! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…az9a - it would be illegal, indeed against the US Constitution, for Trump to attempt to take over the election process. In fact I recently added a remark about this to my original post, for people unfamiliar with the US system. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…5ahq - I'd never say radically improved democracy is impossible. We need not only an appealing new system, but a way to get there from here. I hope you've written, or will write, a detailed tactical manual on how to get there from here. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…5ahq - I don't read Medium, but try these: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…5ahq - Lots of people are discussing those questions. But it's also important to avoid falling off the cliff right now. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Trump now says the quiet part out loud: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Ecologist Alison Anastasio visited a former US Steel South Works site in Chicago. She expected to find “all crap plants” — common invasive weeds. To her surprise she spotted little bluestem and three species of native milkweed. She had already decided she didn't want a career as an academic scientist. But she came up with the idea of forming a group to study this ecosystem: “a dream team of people I wanted to work with.” npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Here's a tale of how nature triumphs in the end. Steel mills dumped molten slag in parts of Chicago and nearby areas. The slag hardened in layers up to 15 feet deep. These places became barren wastelands. Some were also dumping grounds for hot ash and cinders. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…3vpz - interesting enough. A bit more color variation on short distance scales might make the landscapes more realistic, especially the one at lower right which has large regions of dark orange (cloud shadows?). The clouds are simple blobs. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…t6k2 - My wife is reading Katabasis. She says it's too long (450 pages), and could have used editing to remove repetition. But she likes some of the ideas, e.g. how people in the Department of Analytic Magick at Cambridge need to compare Western and Chinese accounts of the geography of Hell to get a good understanding of the place. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…ldyp @nprofile…s7d2 @nprofile…t6k2 @nprofile…z2n3 - when you folks figure out what's going on here, I hope you explain it to me in simple terms. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…s7d2 - You're making me think I was mixed up. (I wrote that stuff a long time ago and haven't thought about it in years.) The proof-theoretic ordinal of PRA is \(\omega^\omega npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez I thought they wouldn't release the Epstein files until hell freezes over... but in fact it only took frost quakes. Yes, FROST QUAKES, also called cryoseisms! It got so cold so fast in the US that freezing soil created earthquakes. They even cracked the wall in someone's house. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez The movement is starting in Minneapolis, and the movement needs songs. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…t6k2 @nprofile…z2n3 @nprofile…s7d2 - just to be clear, where @nprofile…z2n3 quoted me as writing ω2 and ωω, I actually wrote ω^2 (ω squared) and ω^ω (ω to the ω). I was trying to say that PRA is powerful enough to prove that the Ackermann function is total because it can handle recurious up to ω^ω, but proving the Ackermann function is total only requires recursion up to ω^2. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Wow! Once the Rhine, the Thames and the Seine were all tributaries of the same big river that flowed out where the English Channel is now! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Fractions built from the numbers 2, 3 and 5 play a big role in music theory! Here I list those as close to 1 as possible for a given complexity. First we get a bunch of famous ones like the major third: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…g0zc @nprofile…gu9p @nprofile…ck2y - If Gödel really did get angry and threw out Chaitin, this could be one of the first examples of scientists getting disgusted by people trying to connect Gödel's theorem and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. By now it's a routine occurrence. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez We need all the humor we can get, these days: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…zyzh - Interesting. For some kinds of math questions there's a right answer, e.g. true-or-false questions (which can be very powerful in mathematics). For these it can be really helpful for beginners to know what's the right answer. For other questions, more open-ended, there's nothing at all like a unique right answer. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…zyzh - nothing in MathOverflow says a question has a single answer. Many questions there have lots. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…wncd - great! I have been very busy and distracted but I ***do*** want to return to this project and finish it off. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…zyzh - I can handle the competitive aspects of MathOverflow myself - I'm fairly high up the totem pole, and I've run quite a few online discussion groups, so I'm used to dealing calmly with jerks of all kinds. But people shouldn't need a thick skin to talk about math! If the competitive aspects are firmly "baked in" to MathOverflow, then someone will have to start afresh with a different approach. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…fh5j - I find MathOverflow extremely useful myself, because it attracts lots of experts who can help me with problems I'm stuck on. However, I suspect you're right that "gamifying" the process of asking and answering questions by giving people points and publicly displaying their "reputation" scores could be off-putting to lots of women (and also certain kinds of men). npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Not very urgent compared to some things, but okay: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…g0zc - opposite of feckless? npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…g0zc - "This shepherd's pie is f***ing good!" npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…3nhw - I don't really know any references that do what you want. Wikipedia lists a bunch of references for the classical case: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…jrcx - @nprofile…t6k2 would have opinions on this, though he may be tired of talking about it. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…a3ey - I guess this is early enough that he's not saying it with the somewhat exasperated tone of a modern mathematician? npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Mood. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…npxu - I was only commenting on the headline and the first explanatory paragraph: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…j4wh - really??? Can't AI solve that problem? npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez "There's a danger that our technology could fail if it fails!" npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…a3ey - noble of you! npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…a3ey - I too promise to no longer publish more than 7 papers per year. 😆 npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…2sx2 - they've got lots of nice posts here. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…2sx2 - there are some very nice experts on constructive mathematics here on Mathstodon, e.g. @nprofile…t6k2 and @nprofile…ldyp. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…2sx2 - there are mathematicians who question all the things you're questioning, and they write papers about that. However, it pays to learn the standard rules. This doesn't mean "believing" in them, indeed one great thing about math is that checking the validity of a proof never requires belief. It pays to learn the standard rules because if you don't, you're cut off from an enormous body of centuries of work. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…hs9s - thanks! The connection of music and math is a wonderful thing. I've got more on this: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez Life in Nunavut - the largest and northernmost territory of Canada. npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…hs9s - Here is a talk Dmitri gave in Edinburgh: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…hs9s - Here is a talk Dmitri gave in Edinburgh: npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6m John Carlos Baez @nprofile…hs9s - Here is a talk Dmitri gave in Edinburgh:
