A day without mistakes is a day without mathematics.
a friend of a friend
Schlagwort: Mathematik
Wise Words.
[latex/secretary].[coq/gradstudent].
Sooner or later computer proof assistants will become the norm, but the longer this process takes the more misery associated with mistakes and with unnecessary self-verification the practitioners of the field will have to endure.
Staubsauger statt Wasserhahn.
So, you think about new things that you can do with vacuum cleaners. So, first, you're like: I can use a vacuum cleaner to clean bookshelves! That'd be super-useful! But then you do a Google Scholar search and it turns out that someone else did that like ten years ago.
OK, your next idea: I can use a vacuum cleaner to clean cats! That'd also be super-useful. But, alas, a bit more searching in the literature reveals that someone tried that, too, but they didn't get good results. You're a confident young grad student, so you decide that, armed with some additional techniques that you happen to know, you might fix the problems that the other researcher had and get vacuuming cats to work. You spend several months on it, but, alas, it doesn't get you any further.
Yasha Berchenko-Kogan answers to What do grad students in math do all day?
Beautiful Nuclear Dualities.
I think we mathematicians are a little bit behind the curve. We are not fully aware of the Frankenstein that we may have already created or could create. I think that’s another aspect of this responsibility of mathematicians to take a more public role—to educate the public by giving them access to the beauty and power of mathematics.