I read two volumes of Bertrand Russell’s autobiography. I was initially only interested in his childhood and education. His childhood contrasts so much with Mill’s (whom I read last month) that any hopes of finding patterns were gone, but the writing was fun and funny, so I kept reading. A major tragicomic pattern is that the simplest things (falling in love, caring for children, spending time in nature, recovering from disease) make him happy, but intellectual pursuits (math, philosophy, political activism) obviously make him miserable, and he himself is oblivious to the pattern for a long while. For example, he enjoyed spending time in the countryside with his sons and decided to research education and open an experimental school. Since experimental schools attract parents with troubled children, it ended up being a disaster for him and the sons. ...
June review
I realized I want to continue writing. To build a habit, I’ll imitate kipply’s regular digests. I read John Stuart Mill’s autobiography. I was mostly interested in his childhood. Somehow I pictured James Mill as a tyrannical father whose education methods drove John into a depression. Wrong! He was eccentric and flawed but overall very sweet. Allowing a child to interrupt your work at any time, as long as the question is about work, is a great trick that must have taken a lot of patience. I think an underestimated part of his success was being friends with many great thinkers who were happy to mentor John. ...
Introduction to probability
We start by giving a definition of probability. It is easier to understand with an example. Imagine you have a fair coin. Obviously, the probability is 1/2. Now try some exercises. – 99% of books that have “introduction” and “probability” in the title The text below is for those who, like me, did not get a good math education and want to teach themselves. Probability is defined as a measure. Distribution functions, expectations, and many others are defined using the Lebesgue integral. Most people who read an introduction to probability do not know what a Lebesgue integral is, so textbook authors avoid talking about it. It’s stupid, because it guarantees that you will have holes in your understanding of the basics. ...
Expertise ladders
I have a habit of regularly revisiting the advice pages I keep bookmarked. Most of this advice seems obvious to me, yet I still manage to occasionally forget to follow it. One of those pages is rather strange. It’s Terence Tao’s. His suggestions are divided into five categories, from primary school to postdoctoral research, gradually shifting from “do not focus on tests and exams” to “do not obsess over famous problems.” I’m not a professional mathematician, and at this point, I probably never will be. Still, whenever I reread these mostly irrelevant tips, I find myself energized, driven to work, and my mood instantly improves, more so than from any other advice. It always felt odd. ...