Categoría: Aprenda Inglés con…

(Sigue de las entradas Aprenda un poco de inglés con… Gian-Carlo Rota (1/11), (2/11), (3/11), (4/11),  (5/11), (6/11),  (7/11), (8/11), (9/11) y (10/11))

10 Be prepared for old age

My late friend Stan Ulam used to remark that his life was sharply divided into two halves. In the first half, he was always the youngest person in the group; in the second half, he was always the oldest. There was no transitional period.

I now realize how right he was. The etiquette of old age does not seem to have been written up, and we have to learn it the hard way. It depends on a basic realization, which takes time to adjust to. You must realize that, after reaching a certain age, you are no longer viewed as a person. You become an institution, and you are treated the way institutions are treated. You are expected to behave like a piece of period furniture, an architectural landmark, or an incunabulum.

It matters little whether you keep publishing or not. If your papers are no good, they will say, “What did you expect? He is a fixture!” and if an occasional paper of yours is found to be interesting, they will say, “What did you expect? He has been working at this all his life!” The only sensible response is to enjoy playing your newly-found role as an institution.

Nota: Hemos visto aquí las diez lecciones de Gian Carlo Rota.

(Sigue de las entradas Aprenda un poco de inglés con… Gian-Carlo Rota (1/11), (2/11), (3/11), (4/11),  (5/11), (6/11),  (7/11), (8/11) y (9/11))

9 Write informative introductions

Nowadays, reading a mathematics paper from top to bottom is a rare event. If we wish our paper to be read, we had better provide our prospective readers with strong motivation to do so. A lengthy introduction, summarizing the history of the subject, giving everybody his due, and perhaps enticingly outlining the content of the paper in a discursive manner, will go some of the way towards getting us a couple of readers.

As the editor of the journal Advances in Mathematics, I have often sent submitted papers back to the authors with the recommendation that they lengthen their introduction. On occasion I received by return mail a message from the author, stating that the same paper had been previously rejected by Annals of Mathematics because the introduction was already too long.

(Sigue de las entradas Aprenda un poco de inglés con… Gian-Carlo Rota (1/11), (2/11), (3/11), (4/11),  (5/11), (6/11),  (7/11) y (8/11))

8 Give lavish acknowledgments

I have always felt miffed after reading a paper in which I felt I was not being given proper credit, and it is safe to conjecture that the same happens to everyone else. One day, I tried an experiment. After writing a rather long paper, I began to draft a thorough bibliography. On the spur of the moment, I decided to cite a few papers which had nothing whatsoever to do with the content of my paper, to see what might happen.

Somewhat to my surprise, I received letters from two of the authors whose papers I believed were irrelevant to my article. Both letters were written in an emotionally charged tone. Each of the authors warmly congratulated me for being the first to acknowledge their contribution to the field.

(Sigue de las entradas Aprenda un poco de inglés con… Gian-Carlo Rota (1/11), (2/11), (3/11), (4/11),  (5/11), (6/11) y (7/11))

7 Use the Feynman method

Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say: “How did he do it? He must be a genius!”