I'm a student of patterns. At heart, I'm a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything.
Know how to solve every problem that has been solved.
I was always attracted to taking a novel position, but one grounded in the materials I'd been given, not made up out of whole cloth.
I am really Method-y.
It's fine to work on any problem, so long as it generates interesting mathematics along the way - even if you don't solve it at the end of the day.
Not only has this subject been long associated with the ideas of thinking men over the ages but its practical importance is attested to by the huge resources of men and material thrown into this type of work.
Mathematicians deal with intellectual concepts which they follow out for their own sake. But they stimulate scientists, philosophers, economists, poets, musicians though without being at all conscious of any need or responsibility to do so.
Moneyball' doesn't have anything to do with on-base percentage or statistics. It's a constant investigation of stagnant systems, to see if you can find value where it isn't readily apparent.
Nerds get caught up in minutiae, because there is a tremendous and fulfilling sense of control in understanding every single detail of a thing more than any other living creature.
A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature.
The problem with this world is not enough problem solvers. So, if you become a problem solver you become rich.
Very few of us trust our immediate connection with nature, or the intuitive intelligence of our body. All too easily, we align ourselves with the logical world of Masculine intelligence. As a culture, we have become so Masculine that we are much more comfortable with analytical problem-solving than with ecstatic dancing!
