WE ARE ALL DESIGNIST NOW:

Mathematicians are storytellers. Our characters are numbers and geometries. Our narratives are the proofs we create about these characters.

Many people believe that doing maths is a question of documenting all the true statements about numbers and geometry - the irrationality of the square root of two, the formula for the volume of the sphere, a list of the finite simple groups. According to one of my mathematical heroes, Henri Poincaré, doing maths is something very different:

"To create consists precisely in not making useless combinations. Creation is discernment, choice. ...The sterile combinations do not even present themselves to the mind of the creator."

Mathematics, just like literature, is about making choices.

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