From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/7970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Johannes Huebschmann Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Seeking a quote about 1930s algebraic topology Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 17:19:33 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: References: Reply-To: Johannes Huebschmann NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1389214098 28423 80.91.229.3 (8 Jan 2014 20:48:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 20:48:18 +0000 (UTC) Cc: "categories@mta.ca" To: Colin McLarty Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Wed Jan 08 21:48:26 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtp3.mta.ca ([138.73.1.186]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1W1035-0001VD-NP for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Jan 2014 21:48:23 +0100 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:53472) by smtp3.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1W101t-0001gy-Br; Wed, 08 Jan 2014 16:47:09 -0400 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W101s-00018E-JE for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Wed, 08 Jan 2014 16:47:08 -0400 Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:7970 Archived-At: I recall an Eilenberg quote from the 1960's "Algebraic topology is a strange and bewildering field ... " I guess a google search yields the source right away. Best Johannes On Sun, 5 Jan 2014, Colin McLarty wrote: > It seems to me I recall someone, maybe Eilenberg, saying they gave a talk > at Harvard in the 1930s on algebraic topology, where someone in the > audience said the subject had reached a level of complexity that it would > not be able to sustain. > > Can anyone here confirm that? Or can someone correct me by giving a > different story that I might have confused in my memory? > > best, Colin > [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]