On Wed, 9 Dec 2009, Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh wrote:

I have read that Dirac had no empathy, not even for his family. I think the story goes the same for many other famous mathematicians/scientists. Why is it being so promoted that being a good mathematician and a good human being is impossible? Is it really true?

Certainly Farmelo's book gives that impression - Dirac wasn't exactly warm and cuddly. But I'd say that from my experience with mathematicians, there's no reason to assert that one cannot be both a good mathematician and a good human being - but maybe that's just because most mathematicians I know are category theorists ... ... (there are exceptions, of course) ... -= rags =-

-Mehrnoosh

On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 5:23 AM, Robert Seely <rags@math.mcgill.ca> wrote:

...

Well, we might not say that, but Voevodsky did. Link on the triples page: http://www.math.mcgill.ca/triples/ (or directly http://claymath.msri.org/voevodsky2002.mov) where he says "Categories: one of the most important ideas of 20th century mathematics".

BTW - the Farmelo book, The Strangest Man, is one I recommend to my students - it's well worth looking at. But one thing that struck me was how *little* Farmelo plays the "strange man" theme - Dirac was indeed strange, but that's not what makes him worth reading about, nor was it what made him a great theoretician. Farmelo doesn't (IMO) make the same mistake so many documentary producers do ...

-= rags =-

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