Learning by Writing

In the terminology of mathematics, what I did here (and in my writing) was to “make a conjecture,” a qualified guess based on limited information. A hypothesis. The mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, whom Johanna and I have written about elsewhere, would always summarize his first impression of a new situation with a conjecture, proclaiming with... See more

Putting ideas into words doesn't have to mean writing, of course. You can also do it the old way, by talking. But in my experience, writing is the stricter test. You have to commit to a single, optimal sequence of words. Less can go unsaid when you don't have tone of voice to carry meaning. And you can focus in a way that would seem excessive in co

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I handled that conundrum the usual way: I went and checked out some of my favorite internet thinkers. These people had no idea what a huge influence they were on me, but all of my ideas were just amalgams of the stuff they were talking about. I tried to pull from a diverse group, Black women sci-fi authors, Chinese business analysts, nuclear disarm

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