Can’t have an article about Nicolas Bourbaki without bringing up the mystery of nickb on Hacker News. Who was he? Paul G? A group of power users?
The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki
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Re: The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki
#12I thought there had been more Bourbaki on HN before, but all I can find is:
2020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23901507
Re: The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki
#13I wish more science, and generally more work was done this way. Dispense with ego-flattering prizes, narratives of discovery that put lone geniuses in the spotlight, turning PIs heroes and dictators at the expense of their team... I understand this is not practical for all fields, but it would alleviate much of the pettiness and unethical behaviors that have become so normalized in academia.
I am no expert but it is not my impression that adopting a group pseudonym eliminated politics or pettiness from the behavior of people inside or outside. But maybe makes the politics a bit less public/transparent? One criticism I have heard from professional mathematicians is that Bourbaki wasted a whole generation of French talent, pulling the best young mathematicians away from their own useful and interesting res…
This is really a good question. On the one hand the work of bourbaki was important, the foundation of math was shaky (I heard there were proof of some theorems and the negative of the same theorem). But then it somehow seems to destroy the spirit of mathematics. Arnold wrote about it:
https://www.uni-muenster.de/Physik.TP/~munsteg/arnold.html#:....
Re: The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki
#14I have to admit that I did read a couple Bourbaki books. Or should I say “tried to read” because their texts are unreadable to put it mildly. They kill mathematics by removing the beauty of it and instead provide dry and boring texts that could be read by robots. Please don’t try to understand mathematics by reading Bourbaki texts. This is not what mathematics is about.
Re: The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki
#15I wish more science, and generally more work was done this way. Dispense with ego-flattering prizes, narratives of discovery that put lone geniuses in the spotlight, turning PIs heroes and dictators at the expense of their team... I understand this is not practical for all fields, but it would alleviate much of the pettiness and unethical behaviors that have become so normalized in academia.
I am no expert but it is not my impression that adopting a group pseudonym eliminated politics or pettiness from the behavior of people inside or outside. But maybe makes the politics a bit less public/transparent? One criticism I have heard from professional mathematicians is that Bourbaki wasted a whole generation of French talent, pulling the best young mathematicians away from their own useful and interesting res…
We need formalism, and we need motivation, examples, and pictures. One isn't better than the other. In particular, formalism isn't about hazing (though I think some people abuse it this way).
Books that claim to appeal more to intuition or rely on visual arguments certainly help a lot with motivating ideas and establishing context, but at a certain point we need to be clear about what exactly we are talking about.
When learning a new topic in math, I personally prefer to start with a more formal, terse text. For me, the texts that focus too much on examples and motivation tend to be chattier -- I have to read an entire paragraph to understand what it is they are getting at, making more challenging the process of chunking the information into digestible bits that I can hold in mind as I shower or go for a walk (and generally less fruitful). Compare to say working through Rudin or Kolmogorov, where I can read a distilled sentence where each word is carefully chosen that I can easily recall and munch on. Part of it is that I have ADHD -- texts that are more formal and less chatty make it easier for me to focus.
That said, I do think Courant had a point with
> Mathematics presented as a closed, linearly ordered, system of truths without reference to origin and purpose has its charm and satisfies a philosophical need. But the attitude of introverted science is unsuitable for students who seek intellectual independence rather than indoctrination; disregard for applications and intuition leads to isolation and atrophy of mathematics. It seems extremely important that students and instructors should be protected from smug purism.
Basically, math doesn't exist in a vacuum, and I think part of the reason there are so many people with low emotional intelligence in math is this belief that it can. But that's another story
Re: The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki
#16Proto-Satoshi
Re: The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki
#17Proto-Satoshi
Poorer-than-Satoshi?
Re: The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki
#18Can’t have an article about Nicolas Bourbaki without bringing up the mystery of nickb on Hacker News. Who was he? Paul G? A group of power users? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10535620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152428
I asked pg directly whether he was nickb, and he said no. More specifically, he said “not only was I not nickb, but I have no idea who he was.”
pg is many things, and he has bent the truth occasionally, but a liar he isn’t. Make of that whatever you will; it’s the closest you’ll get to an answer.
However, the early secret sauce of HN was to hunt for stories manually and to keep the front page interesting every day. (It’s today’s secret sauce too.) One person can do it, but they’d have to spend several hours per day, like a full time job.
Re: The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki
#19I have to admit that I did read a couple Bourbaki books. Or should I say “tried to read” because their texts are unreadable to put it mildly. They kill mathematics by removing the beauty of it and instead provide dry and boring texts that could be read by robots. Please don’t try to understand mathematics by reading Bourbaki texts. This is not what mathematics is about.
I used Bourbaki as a second text in an advanced math course I took when I was at UC Berkeley in the early 1960's. I remember with delight the spare clarity of the presentation of the material and organic, intuitive organization of the topic. French has always seemed to me to be the language of mathematics, reason, logic (and love).
Re: The Secret Math Society Known as Nicolas Bourbaki
#20I remember reading a set of books by Bourbaki, I distinctly remember being awed by the style and approach. I though this guy was awesome. I find it hard to comprehend that 'he' was actually many authors. Really surprised to find the style matched up.