Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry • Hacker News Board

Re: Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

#51

Post by cjbgkagh » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 6:01 PM UTC

surfingdino wrote: post #47

cjbgkagh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don’t know that Lenin was sent to Russia from his Swiss exile by the Germans in a sealed diplomatic train with the express intent to induce the October revolution and end the hostilities on that front. It was done to the Russians by cynical Germans who still ended up losing WWI. Churchill deliberately courted the Russians and prevented attacks on them early on in WWII to make it easier for them to switch…

China no longer sees Russia as a partner, but a vassal state. They rejected Putin's proposal for the Siberian pipeline and are slowing down deliveries of various components needed to manufacture weapons. Chinese banks are limiting their dealing with Russian banks and companies to avoid sanctions. Like it or hate it, US Dollar is the world's reserve currency and getting cut off from the global banking network is not w…

I don't agree with your assessments but I don't have the time to discuss it on HN. Back to work for me.

Re: Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

#52

Post by raldi » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 6:08 PM UTC

thih9 wrote: post #24

blendergeek wrote: post #5

Headline should be "Oscar Zariski - forgot about his own wedding" in accordance with HN headline guidelines.

Could you cite the guideline? I couldn't find it; I thought the idea is to use the original title where possible. > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

And in this case, it seems misleading and definitely clickbait. The quote at the end doesn't support the claim that he forgot anything.

The citation (https://books.google.com/books?id=9zu0BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA33&lpg=P... ) doesn't support the claim either. It sounds more like the story was: While waiting for his wife to arrive at their wedding ceremony, he stepped away and passed the time by working on a problem.

Re: Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

#53

Post by meroes » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 6:20 PM UTC

bongodongobob wrote: post #37

simpaticoder wrote: post #11

Those who spend their time flying through imaginary worlds do well to "remember where the off switch is" to quote Ian Banks' "Excession". It's also helpful to characterize a person not just by their character, tenacity or energy, or age, but also a number between 0 and 1 that indicates how much of their time they've spent in the real world, vs in their happy fun space. Call it the "imagination factor". A bright, capa…

[flagged]

Self awareness puts them at least above .5 on the real world portion

Re: Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

#54

Post by mandibeet » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 7:13 PM UTC

galaxyLogic wrote: post #46

For whomever might be interested in anectodes about mathematicians' personal lives: My girlfriend's family was related to https://planetmath.org/kallevaisala and she told me this story which was part of the family lore. The family and friends were having some kind of get-together celebration maybe a wedding or so and prof. Vaisala's wife had bought him a brand new suit to look good for the occasion. During the party…

Thank you for sharing this story! The story brought a smile on my face. Needed it today.

Re: Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

#55

Post by mandibeet » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 7:15 PM UTC

simpaticoder wrote: post #11

Those who spend their time flying through imaginary worlds do well to "remember where the off switch is" to quote Ian Banks' "Excession". It's also helpful to characterize a person not just by their character, tenacity or energy, or age, but also a number between 0 and 1 that indicates how much of their time they've spent in the real world, vs in their happy fun space. Call it the "imagination factor". A bright, capa…

Overall I find the "imagination factor" as an useful tool for self-reflection and understanding others

Re: Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

#56

Post by mandibeet » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 7:18 PM UTC

hprotagonist wrote: post #4

Reminds me of the story about Weiner, who forgot he moved. Apparently a true story, but the version where he also didn’t recognize his daughter (waiting for him at his previous home to show him to the new one) was an embellishment; at his funeral, his daughter said “dad never forgot who his children were”.

I think such anecdotes and concepts reflect the complexity of human nature

Re: Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

#57

Post by mandibeet » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 7:21 PM UTC

These anecdotes not only humanize these brilliant minds but also offer a humorous and endearing look at the quirks that often accompany such intense intellectual focus.

Re: Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

#58

Post by mandibeet » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 7:23 PM UTC

escapecharacter wrote: post #17

lrobinovitch wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unclear to me what you're defining as real. Coal mining? Childcare? Community centers? Through hiking? Interesting theoretical realms can have enormous consequences in the physical/tangible world, as I'm sure you know :). Maybe it's more of a "presence factor" in relation to this story: a measure of how aware you are of the roles and responsibilities you have and how engaged with them you are.

Of course, there is disagreement on a person’s roles and responsibilities. To someone, my responsibility might be answering the doorbell quickly when Amazon drops off a package. To another, it might be how responsive I am to email. These are in conflict, and sometimes it’s worth missing an Amazon package to finish an important email.

Absolutely, the concept of roles and responsibilities is highly subjective

Re: Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

#59

Post by YZF » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 7:29 PM UTC

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #8

Historical footnote: 'What also surprised me in the biography was the striking difference between Jews in Italy and in Poland. [...] Leopold Infeld’s autobiography [...] describes the Jewish ghettos in Poland as being almost completely isolated from the general population. [...] She was utterly surprised when she first saw the Jewish quarter in Warsaw, remarking: “The Jews in side curls and kaftans made me feel that…

I would guess to some extent?

I am far from an expert but I don't think late 19th century or early 20th century Europe would be directly comparable to 21st century USA. It's an interesting topic and maybe some starting points are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_secularism https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jewish-pop... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtetl

Part of my ancestry is European Jewish and I'm sure my grandparents and great grandparents would have stories to tell but I was never interested in this while they were still alive. Kind of funny how that works. They were not religious.

Re: Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

#60

Post by thiagoharry » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 9:30 PM UTC

danielvf wrote: post #14

ben_w wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I'm curious: most of us are familiar with what the USSR did wrong, were they better or worse than the Tsars before them?

The early USSR was at least two orders of magnitude worse than the czars, if you score either by yearly executions or by yearly sent to Siberia. And that's not evening counting the USSR's millions "resettled" in ethic operations, with about a 20%-25% death rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Sov... And then we have the epic years in the 1920's of famine from screwing up the agricultural sys…

Any revolution and revolutionary change will cause a considerable amount of deaths during the power struggle. Do this mean that post-revolutionary France is orders of magnitude worse than pre-revolutionary France?

Russia during the czarist era suffered severe famines about one each 11 years, and the death toll was on the order of millions, all happening while Russia exported grains [1]. It could be argued that the modernization happened in the post-revolutionary Russia prevented new famines after some time, despite the initial drawbacks caused by revolutionary changes. It would be very difficult to do a proper land reform with a regime backed by a rural nobility.

[1] http://www.domarchive.ru/history/part-1-empire/61