[math-fun] Grothendieck's politics
This is just to remind you, in case you have forgotten, or never knew, that Grothendieck intentionally put himself in harm's way when he was lecturing during the US bombing of Hanoi, in a forest on this city's outskirts. I don't know whether it is off-topic on this mailing list to mention the politics, even one as famous as Grothendieck, but among others, this was one of his passions in life, besides his vegetarianism and love of animals. Grothendieck was a great mathematician and even greater man. Art DuPre
Politics is strongly discouraged. Exceptions for math-related politics. Grothendieck is now a historical figure, so decriptions of his political views would be OK. But it's hard to separate that from your own opinions about whether this is good or bad, which drags in contemporary issues. We don't want to get into the merits or otherwise of animals, vegetables, or the VietNam war: It will spoil the list. Rich ------ Quoting dupre@math.rutgers.edu:
This is just to remind you, in case you have forgotten, or never knew, that Grothendieck intentionally put himself in harm's way when he was lecturing during the US bombing of Hanoi, in a forest on this city's outskirts. I don't know whether it is off-topic on this mailing list to mention the politics, even one as famous as Grothendieck, but among others, this was one of his passions in life, besides his vegetarianism and love of animals. Grothendieck was a great mathematician and even greater man.
Art DuPre
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On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 7:59 AM, <rcs@xmission.com> wrote:
Politics is strongly discouraged. ... We don't want to get into the merits or otherwise of animals, vegetables, or the VietNam war: It will spoil the list.
Agreed: http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/ -- Mike Stay - metaweta@gmail.com http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~mike http://reperiendi.wordpress.com
I liked some of the lesswrong.com post, but I disagree that AI folks must have chosen the Nixon example for purposes of getting a dig in. I don't know their motives and I suspect that the author of that post doesn't either. Speaking for myself, there's an example of language and logic that I occasionally trot out, namely the fact that the sentence "General Westmoreland did not deceive LBJ" is not synonymous with the formally equivalent sentence "LBJ was not deceived by General Westmoreland". I came across the latter sentence in an issue of Newsweek around 1980, noticed the amusingly asymmetrical implications of negation in the active and passive moods, and have used the sentence as an example ever since. I use it because it's the first example I became aware of, not because I have an axe to grind about LBJ or General Westmoreland or the Vietnam War. Jim Propp On Wednesday, November 19, 2014, Mike Stay <metaweta@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 7:59 AM, <rcs@xmission.com <javascript:;>> wrote:
Politics is strongly discouraged. ... We don't want to get into the merits or otherwise of animals, vegetables, or the VietNam war: It will spoil the list.
Agreed: http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/ -- Mike Stay - metaweta@gmail.com <javascript:;> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~mike http://reperiendi.wordpress.com
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Oops, I meant "voice", not "mood". Jim Propp On Wednesday, November 19, 2014, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
I liked some of the lesswrong.com post, but I disagree that AI folks must have chosen the Nixon example for purposes of getting a dig in. I don't know their motives and I suspect that the author of that post doesn't either.
Speaking for myself, there's an example of language and logic that I occasionally trot out, namely the fact that the sentence "General Westmoreland did not deceive LBJ" is not synonymous with the formally equivalent sentence "LBJ was not deceived by General Westmoreland". I came across the latter sentence in an issue of Newsweek around 1980, noticed the amusingly asymmetrical implications of negation in the active and passive moods, and have used the sentence as an example ever since. I use it because it's the first example I became aware of, not because I have an axe to grind about LBJ or General Westmoreland or the Vietnam War.
Jim Propp
On Wednesday, November 19, 2014, Mike Stay <metaweta@gmail.com <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','metaweta@gmail.com');>> wrote:
On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 7:59 AM, <rcs@xmission.com> wrote:
Politics is strongly discouraged. ... We don't want to get into the merits or otherwise of animals, vegetables, or the VietNam war: It will spoil the list.
Agreed: http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/ -- Mike Stay - metaweta@gmail.com http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~mike http://reperiendi.wordpress.com
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There's a nice bio of Grothendieck here: < http://www.ams.org/notices/200808/tx080800930p.pdf >. The file is about 11 MB, from the September, 2008 AMS Notices. (Though, for some reason I can't get to that web page at the moment.) It's available from a lot of sites, such as here, which downloads it immediately: < www.ihes.fr/document?id=1723&id_attribute=48 >. --Dan
participants (5)
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Daniel Asimov -
dupre＠math.rutgers.edu -
James Propp -
Mike Stay -
rcs＠xmission.com