Re: File's Owner

FROM : Jens Alfke
DATE : Sun May 25 21:51:15 2008

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.