I really don't remember with my mind. At least not while I am sitting at Espresso Royale in Madison's State Street and churns of images take physically hold of me. Owen, Bluff, Kendall and going by bicycle, the corner where once a car almost hit me, the corner of the wild plants, Hyer teaching counterpoint and riding his bycicle on Kendall, the ( Read more... )

Alain de Botton's Consolations of Philosophy - much better than what the title promises. Focuses on various responses to various problems such as (in)adequacy, (lack of) self confidence, (lack of) love, hardship, anger, etc. - responses by Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The book seems to follow Montaigne's ( Read more... )

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After the Holland intellectual high, I am now back to reality, "crystallizing" various things here in Helsinki.

1. A bit puzzled by why, and how, sometimes our worst examples become the best in retrospect. I am teaching for a few weeks here a course on a subject I truly hated when I was taught it. I blamed (and continue to blame) my former teacher of ( Read more... )

Still elated by the three-way conference. There were some incredible lectures. It is not every day that one gets to gather very good mathematicians, philosophers and artists - and try to talk for the others, and listen to them, for three days.

Now, back to Helsinki!

This is Doris Salcedo's installation at Tate Modern:


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En realidad no he tenido tiempo. Quién va a tener tiempo, con un encuentro de la AMS donde está todo el mundo en el área de uno, incluso algunos que uno no esperaba, donde las charlas han estado buenísimas todas hasta ahora (sí: a pesar del jetlag he estado feliz oyendo el sutil juego que se está trenzando entre las clases elementales abstractas y ( Read more... )

La semana pasada en Villa de Leyva estuvo repleta de ideas y encuentros:

1. Posibilidad de demostrar brecha-2 sin pantanos, usando construcciones modelo-teóricas nuevas en vez del cuadrado y el pantano. Claro (no hay problema con esto), con algo de hipótesis del continuo. Es natural: cuando fueron inventados los pantanos, no se conocían las ( Read more... )

At the middle of a fantastic Model Theory Meeting here in Villa de Leyva (combined with BOMMT) we received notice of the closure of Ali Nesin's Mathematical School in Turkey (I had reported earlier on this blog on the great initiative of opening such a Mathematical School).

The piece of news is astonishing - there is (apparently) some squabble over ( Read more... )

1. Started Eugene Onegin on the Roger Clarke translation. I cannot judge (of course) from the original, but in this version I truly enjoy the freshness, the way Onegin and his friend Lénsky just go about life as on a rollercoaster. My reading is slow - I do too many other things on the side and don't like to rush on fiction I truly enjoy. I have only ( Read more... )