Saturday, August 8, 2015
Steven Frazer. The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power.
Liberal polemics and should be evaluated as such; but well argued and very sad. The author predicts that the American future consists of the unlimited power of the few oligarchs and huddled but docile and slowly pauperizing masses.
Monday, August 3, 2015
Michael Harris. Mathematics without apologies.
I propose replacing much-abused Einstein's maxim on madness with the following. "Madness" in a colloquial sense is one's inability to control speech behavior and to put things in orderly progression. Michael Harris may be very smart but is undeniably mad in the sense of above definition. The text is interspersed with long French and German quotes--yes, we understand, he knows these languages--sometimes even Russian and Arabic, and has no logical order to think of. In his ability to make simple things complicated he rivals another algebraic geometer, genial Yuri Manin, [who is not mentioned in his book despite Manin's co-author Drinfeld figuring prominently.--see comments for correction]
P.S. There is an absurd "love" equation on p.357 of notes. There should be time derivatives somewhere!
P.S. There is an absurd "love" equation on p.357 of notes. There should be time derivatives somewhere!
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