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7 - Is Mathematical Maturity for Everyone?

Steven G. Krantz
Steven G. Krantz
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
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Summary

All you need for differentiation is a strong right arm and a weak mind.

Ron Getoor (mathematician)

A man whose mind has gone astray should study mathematics.

Francis Bacon (philosopher, writer)

Mathematicians, like cows in the dark, all look alike to me.

Abraham Flexner (educator)

The immature man wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mature man wants to live humanely for one.

Wilhelm Stekel (psychiatrist)

Those guys are talented; they're young; they're inexperienced. They need some maturity.

Rod Barnes (basketball coach)

All these prescriptions and descriptions about how to be a mathematician arose, inevitably, from my own attempts to become one. Nobody can tell you what mathematicians should do, and I am not completely sure I know what in fact they do—all I can really say is what I did … I taught, I wrote, and I talked mathematics for fifty years, and I am glad I did. I wanted to be a mathematician. I still do.

Paul Halmos (mathematician)

Chapter Overview

We tend to be a bit self-absorbed. We spend our days in mathematics departments (either at the university or elsewhere) thinking mathematical thoughts.

So we are less than fully aware of the world around us.

As a result, we often do not have a full appreciation of the fact that there are other points of view in the world. Not everyone is passionate about mathematical maturity. How would a butcher or a baker or a literary critic or a chemist view mathematical maturity? Would any of them attach any value to the concept?

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Information
A Mathematician Comes of Age , pp. 115 - 118
Publisher: Mathematical Association of America
Print publication year: 2011

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