The problem with the global village is all the
global-village idiots.
Attributed to Sidney Coleman in arXiv:1108.2700.
Do not work within two hours of a substantial meal; blood cannot be in
two places at once.
J.E. Littlewood, in Littlewood's miscellany, p199.
Certainly the best times were when I was alone with mathematics, free of ambition and pretense, and indifferent to the world.
Langlands, in Mathematicians: An Outer View of the Inner World, p142.
Mathematics has been for me, not only a profession, but also my preferred hobby. ... Again and again I have been guided by a sense of the architecture of this edifice, to which we continue to add new wings and new floors while renovating the parts already constructed, into feeling that certain problems had priority as opening new perspectives or establishing a new foundation for future constructions. This is the professional point of view, but happily these problems were those that attracted me the most. In other instances I was not guided by such motives, being attracted only by curiosity, by the need to know the answer to an enigma, without reference to its importance in a general context. Borel, Œuvres IV, p376.
I am more likely to respond to email that comes with a real name and a real email address.
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