Monthly Archives: August 2016

Bollobas on solving problems

What you should be terrified of is a blank sheet in front of you after having thought about a problem for a little while. If after a session your wastepaper basket is full of notes of failed attempts, you may … Continue reading

Logical order

The most efficient logical order for a subject is usually different from the best psychological order in which to learn it William Thurston from his book Three dimensional geometry and topology.

One-seventh ellipse

Fun fact. It is well known that $\frac{1}{7} = 0.\overline{142857}$. It turns out that if the repeating digits are taken in sequence as (x,y) pairs in the following manner to form six points: (1,4), (4,2), (2,8), (8,5), (5,7), … Continue reading

Lakatos on Discovery

Discovery does not go up or down, but follows a zig-zag path: prodded by counterexamples, it moves from the naïve conjecture to the premises and the turns back again to delete the naïve conjecture and replace it by the theorem. … Continue reading