Interestingly, David Graeber argued that mathematical thinking likely began through initiatives of women. Specifically tied to practices like weaving, beadwork, and tracking plant-based knowledge.
not necessarily disputing any of his conclusions, but I find his style of argument frustratingly slippery, always generalizing broadly from weak evidence
He was much more effective at disputing narratives than he was at creating alternative ones. But no one can deny his ability to captivate and inspire the imagination
This essay: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/whats-the-point-if-we-cant-hav... is so bad, so dogmatic, and so obnoxious, verging on something that feels to me like intellectual dishonesty, that I ended a friendship with someone who praised it as "beautiful."
> Our term ‘the state’ only came into common usage in the late sixteenth century, when it was coined by a French lawyer named Jean Bodin, who also wrote, among many other things, an influential treatise on witchcraft, werewolves and the history of sorcerers. (He is further remembered today for his profound hatred of women.)
Damn.
> Now to return to that strange and crude mysticism, which, as I have said above, took hold of Empress Alexandra and with which she infected her august spouse. In the course of my stay in Paris in 1903 I had long talks with Baron Alphonse, the septuagenarian head of the Rothschild house. Our conversation mostly revolved around the preoccupation with the occult and the mystic which had taken root at the Russian Court, this being, in the Baron's opinion, a bad symptom. He repeatedly returned to this subject. History shows, he pointed out, that great events, especially of an internal nature, were always and everywhere preceded by the prevalence of a bizarre mysticism at the court of the ruler.
The Memoirs of Count Witte
> Whoever has had the opportunity of studying the concealed feelings of persons by means of psychoanalysis can also tell something new concerning the quality of unconscious motives, which express themselves in superstition. Nervous persons afflicted with compulsive thinking and compulsive states, who are often very intelligent, show very plainly that superstition originates from repressed hostile and cruel impulses. The greater part of superstition signifies fear of impending evil, and he who has frequently wished evil to others, but because of a good bringing-up has repressed the same into the unconscious, will be particularly apt to expect punishment for such unconscious evil in the form of a misfortune threatening him from without.
Birman still dropping bangers at 100 is quite something. We knew 3 strands is faithful and it was assumed 4 must be true but the ramifications of this in the face of quantum computing will be really fun going forward.
??? But it does allow us to better reason about which braids are different or the same. and the most promising quantum computers use braiding to form logic gates.
If you look closely, you can find a mention of the n=4 Burau representation in it, and the fact that it "remains an open problem" to find elements of its kernel, i.e. to determine whether it is faithful.
Interestingly, David Graeber argued that mathematical thinking likely began through initiatives of women. Specifically tied to practices like weaving, beadwork, and tracking plant-based knowledge.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-and-da...
not necessarily disputing any of his conclusions, but I find his style of argument frustratingly slippery, always generalizing broadly from weak evidence
He was much more effective at disputing narratives than he was at creating alternative ones. But no one can deny his ability to captivate and inspire the imagination
This was one of my favorite talks he gave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn78MhPmbCc
This essay: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/whats-the-point-if-we-cant-hav... is so bad, so dogmatic, and so obnoxious, verging on something that feels to me like intellectual dishonesty, that I ended a friendship with someone who praised it as "beautiful."
Don't see what's wrong with it...
Found the autist!
> Our term ‘the state’ only came into common usage in the late sixteenth century, when it was coined by a French lawyer named Jean Bodin, who also wrote, among many other things, an influential treatise on witchcraft, werewolves and the history of sorcerers. (He is further remembered today for his profound hatred of women.)
Damn.
> Now to return to that strange and crude mysticism, which, as I have said above, took hold of Empress Alexandra and with which she infected her august spouse. In the course of my stay in Paris in 1903 I had long talks with Baron Alphonse, the septuagenarian head of the Rothschild house. Our conversation mostly revolved around the preoccupation with the occult and the mystic which had taken root at the Russian Court, this being, in the Baron's opinion, a bad symptom. He repeatedly returned to this subject. History shows, he pointed out, that great events, especially of an internal nature, were always and everywhere preceded by the prevalence of a bizarre mysticism at the court of the ruler.
The Memoirs of Count Witte
> Whoever has had the opportunity of studying the concealed feelings of persons by means of psychoanalysis can also tell something new concerning the quality of unconscious motives, which express themselves in superstition. Nervous persons afflicted with compulsive thinking and compulsive states, who are often very intelligent, show very plainly that superstition originates from repressed hostile and cruel impulses. The greater part of superstition signifies fear of impending evil, and he who has frequently wished evil to others, but because of a good bringing-up has repressed the same into the unconscious, will be particularly apt to expect punishment for such unconscious evil in the form of a misfortune threatening him from without.
Sigmund Freud, Premonitions and Chance
https://imgur.com/a/gHLhHmy
Have a look at hyperbolic crochet as well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daina_Taimi%C5%86a
https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~dtaimina/crochet/hplane.htm
https://www.routledge.com/Crocheting-Adventures-with-Hyperbo...
Birman still dropping bangers at 100 is quite something. We knew 3 strands is faithful and it was assumed 4 must be true but the ramifications of this in the face of quantum computing will be really fun going forward.
What are the ramifications?
??? But it does allow us to better reason about which braids are different or the same. and the most promising quantum computers use braiding to form logic gates.
99, according to Wikipedia, but yeah
Also https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/99-old-mathemati.... Someone who has been at this problem for 60 years.
She has a wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Birman
Nice! Her experience getting a "bionic ear" at age 80 was very interesting: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~jb/my-bionic-ear.pdf
There was an excellent Dance Your PhD video about representations of braid groups and faithfulness in 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MASNukczu5A
If you look closely, you can find a mention of the n=4 Burau representation in it, and the fact that it "remains an open problem" to find elements of its kernel, i.e. to determine whether it is faithful.
Am I going crazy or are the timestamps of the comments here wrong (after being merged?)?
second chance pool messes up timestamps
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998309