Aspiring to a Higher Plane
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Aspiring to a Higher Plane
it describes the journeys of A. Square [sic – ed.] , a mathematician and resident of the two-dimensional Flatland, where women-thin, straight lines-are the lowliest of shapes, and where men may have any number of sides, depending on their social status.
Edwin A. Abbott • Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
In June 1983, Alexander Grothendieck sits down to write the preface to a mathematical manuscript called Pursuing Stacks . He is concerned by what he sees as a tacit disdain for the more “feminine side” of mathematics (which is related to what I’m calling the solitary creative state) in favor of the “hammer and chisel” of the finished theorem. By... See more