Compactification quantizes momentum.

— String Theory Demystified, p.218

— David McMahon

2012.08.24 Friday ACHK 

Like most individuals, and probably, most mathematicians outside his field, I do not deeply understand much of Thurston’s work. But he did have a rather large impact on my life insofar as a paragraph of his has stayed with me several years (not many do, I’m afraid), and has been my reminder to slow down whenever I find myself saying “psh, that was easy, all I had to do was browse through the documentation”:

I prided myself in reading quickly. I was really amazed by my first encounters with serious mathematics textbooks. I was very interested and impressed by the quality of the reasoning, but it was quite hard to stay alert and focused. After a few experiences of reading a few pages only to discover that I really had no idea what I’d just read, I learned to drink lots of coffee, slow way down, and accept that I needed to read these books at 1/10th or 1/50th standard reading speed, pay attention to every single word and backtrack to look up all the obscure numbers of equations and theorems in order to follow the arguments.

If a Fields medalist needed to slow down to read some maths, I can slow down to really understand whatever it is that I’m doing. And when I tell myself “I’ve learned that already!” I stop and ask whether I learned it at a “1/50th pace.”

— kevinalexbrown 1 day ago

— Hacker News

2012.08.24 Friday ACHK