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Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry

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

#61

Post by AnimalMuppet »

thiagoharry wrote: post #60
danielvf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

> 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?

Post-revolutionary France was Napoleon causing somewhere between 3.25 million and 6.5 million deaths across Europe. Then back to the monarchy, so very little net change from pre-revolutionary France, except for all the dead bodies.

But I agree with your first sentence. Any real revolution will cause a great deal of death. Can you build back something enough better to be worth all that? For many revolutions, the answer is no.

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

#62

Post by dang »

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]

Please don't cross into personal attack, regardless of what you think of another commenter's comments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#63

Post by dang »

blendergeek wrote: post #5

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

This seems to be one of those non-converging title sequences because no option satisfies everyone.

We eventually changed it to "Oscar Zariski was one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry", even though this omits the anecdote which the thread is mostly about. People won't miss that if they see the article's own title though.

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

#64

Post by rendall »

> On the day he and his fiancée Yole were getting married, with Yole already dressed in white and veiled and the rabbi standing by, the bridegroom was nowhere to be found. It turned out he was working on a mathematical problem. Luckily, Yole was neither angry nor surprised; she was amused. Ha! I need to tell this to my wife.

Fellas and ladies, get yourself a spouse who understands when you're late to your own wedding because you are inspired by your passions.

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

#65

Post by racional »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #31
datameta wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that puzzles me is those people who shudder at comparing Stalin's murderous spree with what Hitler's effects were. Is it the cognitive dissonance of not wanting to believe that we not only allied with a genocidal dictatorship but heavily supplied them with industrial output during the war? My family lived in the USSR and I can say for a fact - knowing it was the NKVD rather than Gestapo that might knock on…

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…

Instead of using Ukraine to give Russia a bloody nose we should have again fermented divisions between Russia and China.

Your reading of what's driving Western support for Ukraine is completely wrong here. They're not simply doing it to "give Russia a bloody nose" for its own sake. They certainly don't mind if that's what Russia gets out of it. But that's not the key objective in itself.

On the flip side: "fermenting divisions between Russia and China" is just fantasy, as at the moment U.S. is really quite inept in regard to such influence. It has no clue how to do that effectively (and any efforts it did take in that direction would most likely be moot and/or backfire).

I should note that I lament the cost of these conflicts to human lives on both sides and wish smarter populations governed by astute politicians would have found ways to successfully avoid war, perhaps at the cost of a multipolar world which we’re likely to get anyway.

Okay, multipolar world, whatever.

But what it really comes down to is this: the only way to have "avoided war" (after 2014) would have been to simply give Russia what it wanted -- recognized sovereignty over significant chunks of territory (most likely at least as much as it's sitting on now), combined with permanent limits on Ukraine's own sovereignty (in terms of its ability to enter treaties).

If you think this would have been (or still would be) an astute course of action -- you might as well come out an say so.

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

#66

Post by galaxyLogic »

mandibeet wrote: post #54
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.

Thanks

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

#67

Post by cjbgkagh »

racional wrote: post #65
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…

Instead of using Ukraine to give Russia a bloody nose we should have again fermented divisions between Russia and China. Your reading of what's driving Western support for Ukraine is completely wrong here. They're not simply doing it to "give Russia a bloody nose" for its own sake. They certainly don't mind if that's what Russia gets out of it. But that's not the key objective in itself. On the flip side: "fermenting…

I think peace could have been bought at the cost of neutrality, so sovereignty yes. I’m sure Ukraine would have been far better off with that, and there are many hundred of thousands of men who definitely would be.

It is hard to discuss this with people because it appears to me that most people are divorced from reality of the war. The framing of it has been warped and anyone who strays from the NAFO line is somehow an apologist. I hate this war and I hate the wars that it seems we’re on the precipice of starting with China and Iran and world will be much worse off when that happens.

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

#68

Post by racional »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #67
racional wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of using Ukraine to give Russia a bloody nose we should have again fermented divisions between Russia and China. Your reading of what's driving Western support for Ukraine is completely wrong here. They're not simply doing it to "give Russia a bloody nose" for its own sake. They certainly don't mind if that's what Russia gets out of it. But that's not the key objective in itself. On the flip side: "fermenting…

I think peace could have been bought at the cost of neutrality, so sovereignty yes. I’m sure Ukraine would have been far better off with that, and there are many hundred of thousands of men who definitely would be. It is hard to discuss this with people because it appears to me that most people are divorced from reality of the war. The framing of it has been warped and anyone who strays from the NAFO line is somehow…

I think peace could have been bought at the cost of neutrality, so sovereignty yes.

It's possible of course, but it's also speculative, and the window for that option is long since closed -- once Putin grabbed the Crimea and then the LNR/DNR, the "neutrality" bid fell from the table.

In any case he's been quite consistent about maintaining whatever regions he's currently occupying (and likely then some, according to the most recent formulations).

So if we're to buy peace now by just giving him what he wants -- that (or some approximation thereof) is what he'll be demanding. In any case it seems extremely unlikely he'd accept a neutrality-only bid by this point.

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

#69

Post by jholman »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #31
datameta wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that puzzles me is those people who shudder at comparing Stalin's murderous spree with what Hitler's effects were. Is it the cognitive dissonance of not wanting to believe that we not only allied with a genocidal dictatorship but heavily supplied them with industrial output during the war? My family lived in the USSR and I can say for a fact - knowing it was the NKVD rather than Gestapo that might knock on…

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…

It'd be more apt to write "fomented divisions", rather than "fermented divisions".

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

#70

Post by akolbe »

surfingdino wrote: post #42
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…

She was likely seeing Hasidic Jews, who are quite distinct in the way they live and dress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasidic_Judaism

Hasidic teaching stories are charming. Here is one:

When Rabbi Zusha was on his deathbed, his students found him in great distress. They tried to comfort him by telling him that he was almost as wise as Moses, so he was sure to be judged positively in Heaven. He replied, "When I pass from this world and appear before the Heavenly Tribunal, they won't ask me, 'Zusha, why weren't you as wise as Moses?' They will ask me, 'Zusha, why weren't you Zusha?'"

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