…and the cries of

…and the cries of the birds and the uproar of the monkeys became more and more remote, and the world became eternally sad. The men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back to before original sin, as their boots sank into pools of … Read more

A chess problem is

A chess problem is genuine mathematics, but it is in some way trivial mathematics. However, ingenious and intricate, however original and surprising the moves, there is something essential lacking. Chess problems are unimportant. The best mathematics is serious as well as beautiful-important if you like, but the word is very ambiguous, and serious expresses what … Read more

No mathematician should ever

No mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man’s game. … Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty. There have been men who have done great work later; … [but] I do not know of a single … Read more

I am a Libertarian.

I am a Libertarian. I want to be known as a Libertarian and a Constitutionalist in the tradition of the early James Madison – father of the Constitution. Labels change and perhaps in the old tradition I would be considered one of the original Whigs. The new title I would wear today is that of … Read more