Donato

“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.”
― William Gibson

“All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity are easy. Stay away from easy.”
― Scott Alexander

“As was foreshadowed in Paragraphs 1 and 4, Cantor, and Dedekind's near-simultaneous appearance in math is more or less the Newton + Leibniz thing all over again, a sure sign that the Time Was Right for (Infinity)-type sets. Just as striking is the Escherian way the two men's work dovetails. Cantor is able to define and ground the concepts of 'infinite set' and 'transfinite number,' and to establish rigorous techniques for combining and comparing different types of (Infinity)s, which is just where Dedekind's def. of irrationals needs shoring up. Pro quo, the schnitt technique demonstrates that actually-infinite sets can have real utility in analysis. That, in other words, as sensuously and cognitively abstract as they must remain, (Infinity)s can nevertheless function in math as practical abstractions rather than as just weird paradoxical flights of fancy.”
― David Foster Wallace, Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity

“And Lo, for the Earth was empty of Form, and void. And Darkness was all over the Face of the Deep. And We said: 'Look at that fucker Dance.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest