I was just reading about the mathematician Tom Zhang and his fascination with "twin primes."
Please read this interview with this brilliant mathematician and consider at least one of the many things he's saying. Choose something about his views of mathematics and write about it.
To get your creative juices flowing, a couple thoughts I had about the interview include (but are not restricted to):
1. The idea that mathematicians are born, not made.
2. He views math as beautiful and interesting not at all for the application. He loves math for itself and for the way mathematics helps him use his mind.
3. I remembered something I read, written by Harold Jacobs in his Geometry text book from 1974:
Pythagoras was a Greek geometer who lived about 2500 years ago. He wondered whether he could teach geometry even to a reluctant student. After finding such a student, Pythagoras agreed to pay him an obel for each theorem he learned. Because the student was very poor, he worked diligently. After a time, however, the student realized that he had become more interested in geometry than in the money he was accumulating. In fact, he became so intrigued with his studies that he begged Pythagoras to go faster, now offering to pay him back an obel for each new theorem. Eventually, Pythagoras got all of his money back.
Now ok, a bunch of you admitted that you do some math in secret or in ways and times that you didn't think you were actually doing math. A bunch of you claimed that over use of technology contributes to math illiteracy. Will any of you to admit that there's something in math --anywhere -- that you've found lovely, beautiful, cool, interesting, intriguing, puzzling, worth thinking about, or simply fun? Oh, do share!
