The Idea of Home (2011)
“For reasons that I will not go into, it was necessary that I attend. I slumped into the room, armed with a doodle pad. My plan was to sit politely and let the talk sail over my head. I would use the hour for meditative reverie; perhaps, if I positioned myself wisely, a discreet little nap might be possible.
On the pad I carried that day, I have a few fragments of the sentences the mathematician used: A formal power series about the origin is an infinite sum Homomorphism is an isomorphism if and only if the matrix is inevitable This is like poetry, I thought, and I leaned forward to hear more. The mathematician was eloquent. She was passionate. And when I set aside my firm belief that I could not comprehend her, something strange happened. It wasn’t that I understood her work, but I understood her vision. I realised I had lived, until that moment, in an airlock, and that she was prising open the heavy door, just a crack. In the sudden brief shaft of light, I glimpsed a sliver of the wo...rld beyond, the world in which she lived.MoreLess
On the pad I carried that day, I have a few fragments of the sentences the mathematician used: A formal power series about the origin is an infinite sum Homomorphism is an isomorphism if and only if the matrix is inevitable This is like poetry, I thought, and I leaned forward to hear more. The mathematician was eloquent. She was passionate. And when I set aside my firm belief that I could not comprehend her, something strange happened. It wasn’t that I understood her work, but I understood her vision. I realised I had lived, until that moment, in an airlock, and that she was prising open the heavy door, just a crack. In the sudden brief shaft of light, I glimpsed a sliver of the wo...rld beyond, the world in which she lived.MoreLess
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