/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12474537
But anon, if you don't trust the pharmaceutical companies and the FDA, then you are an alt-right neonazi conspiracy theorist.

>>12326075
They literally turn into trannies and dykes and make Twitter accounts where they post about a mixture of SJW shit and category theory. Emily Riehl from JHU is a good example. In all fairness though, she has achieved more than I probably ever will, but that doesn't excuse her advocacy of censorship or the fact that she used her platform and her network of LGBT-category theorist friends across the country to smear John Baez for being racist/sexist/homophobic because he made a joke literally one time about muh oppression.

>>11903690
>>11903595
Pi was defined 2500 years ago by the ancient Greeks as the ration of the diameter of the circle to its circumference. A radian is a section of the circumference equal to the length of the radius. The radius is half the diameter, so there are 2pi radians in a circle.

>>11563735
Actually IMO papers and monographs tend to exhibit a better and more engaging writing style than math textbooks usually do. Of course, it varies a lot between sub disciplines, but actual journal articles tend to include more historical commentary, motivation, and tend to get to the point without a bit quicker.

That being said, even journal articles and monographs aren't much better. Unfortunately most mathematicians aren't very good writers, and it seems like a lot of them like it that way. It's not necessarily the majority position within the world of mathematics, but I would say a lot of people actually support or approve of a very dry, terse, unpassionate, and unmotivated writing style. They think it lends "rigor" and that "real math" consists of proofs, definitions, and theorems. Of course, there are many mathematicians who disagree. From my perspective historical continuity and dialog are just as import to mathematics as so-called "rigor". Some mathematicians like Paul Halmos and John Conway really are great and a pleasure to read.

The position we find ourselves in is kind of unfortunate. I once heard someone remark that math papers aren't meant to be widely read, even by a general mathematical audience. That they serve only to provide a record of who, when, and how a theorem was proved, as it were. This is a very unfortunate, and more importantly, unnecessary state of affairs. I am somewhat conversant in academic math, academic philosophy, and academic biology. Obviously any discipline will have its dull points and uninteresting topics, but only in math in math do we see such a large quantity of unreadable and uninteresting papers. The situation in biology and philosophy is different: one can open almost any journal, monograph, or anthology and find numerous articles worth reading.