[lit-ideas] Re: Hereabouts
- From: david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2020 11:55:54 -0700
On Jun 21, 2020, at 11:47 AM, adriano paolo shaul gershom palma
<palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear DAvid, the collatz cases are rather easy to grasp, far less clear what
proves that the results generaiize--
best
Perhaps I should have written that after I read the piece I felt more like an
observer than a participant? It’s a long time since I did any math. I’ve
hired mathematicians, and talked at conferences with historians of mathematics,
but I’m really pretty ignorant about the field. My best exchange ever though
was with a mathematician who averred that nothing could be learned from a
sample of three. I said, “Tell that to the fourth wife of Henry VIII.”
David Ritchie,
Professor of History
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