From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/4630 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: jim stasheff Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Bourbaki and Categories Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:01:58 -0400 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241020067 14120 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:47:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:47:47 +0000 (UTC) To: Meredith Gregory , categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Sep 23 21:14:02 2008 -0300 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:14:02 -0300 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1KiHuL-0004aD-Fq for categories-list@mta.ca; Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:07:05 -0300 Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 126 Original-Lines: 48 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:4630 Archived-At: I would just add or emphasize if implicit here one thought: a view into the often very human process of interaction viz. several of the anecdotes about `life with Bott' at his recent memorial conference jim Meredith Gregory wrote: > All, > > i have been utterly delighted by this conversation. What i can't help but > think about, however, is that with the internet we have a different sort of > opportunity. Let me try to describe it. > > - What is missing in most mathematical presentations is a view into the > often very human and very messy process of getting to the presentation. What > young mathematicians need -- in my view -- is a view of mathematicians doing > mathematics. They need to see very top-down orientations rubbing elbows with > very bottoms-up orientations. They need to see highly inventive, unifying > viewpoints come up against skeptical viewpoints armed with vast arrays of > counter-examples. They need to see people desperately trying to organize > while others are desperately trying to de-construct. This is where the life > of mathematics is. This is how people bring mathematics to life. > - With the internet we have the opportunity to record not just the final > artifact, tractate or wiki, but the process. Ever since Andre Joyal > mentioned a 2nd life for Bourbaki i can't stop thinking about a Bourbaki > colloquium run in Second Life -- so that > whatever the outcome of a given process is in terms of artifact, people can > go back and look at the process, itself. They can see how people argued and > counter-argued. There is getting to be a precendent for this, from > Harvardto > Intel , to run > serious technical conversation in Second Life. > > Perhaps this idea is too far out, but i would urge those who seriously > consider a second life for Bourbaki to remember to record the living part as > well as the outcome. After all, looking over the last many emails to > categories so much of it is an attempt to recover process -- how things got > to be where they are. > > Best wishes, > > --greg >