Lately James Dolan and I have been studying number theory. I used to hate this subject: it seemed like a massive waste of time. Newspapers, magazines and even lots of math books seem to celebrate the idea of people slaving away for centuries on puzzles whose only virtue is that they’re easy to state but hard to solve.

Sure, it’s noble to seek knowledge for its own sake. But working on a math problem just because it’s hard is like trying to drill a hole in a concrete wall with your nose, just to prove you can! If you succeed, I’ll be impressed – but I’ll still wonder why you didn’t put all that energy into something more interesting.

Now my attitude has changed, because I’m beginning to see that behind these silly hard problems there lurks an actual theory, full of deep ideas and interesting links to other branches of mathematics, including mathematical physics.

— January 10, 2004

— This Week’s Finds in Mathematical Physics (Week 201)

— John Baez

2012.07.08 Sunday ACHK