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Tuesday, July 18, 2006

We've hardly begun

From Barry Mazur's Foreword to Fearless Symmetry: Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers by Avner Ash & Robert Gross (to be published by Princeton University Press):
At some point in his or her life every working mathematician has to explain to someone, usually a relative, that mathematics is hardly a finished project. The mathematicians know, of course, that it is far too early to put the glorious achievements of their trade into a big museum and become happy curators. Our subject has, in certain respects, hardly begun. But, at least in the past, this seems not to have been universally acknowledged.
Yes, forget the big museum, it's the seed bank we need.

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