Thanks to our usual summer hang-outs (Dutch beaches, local playgrounds and terraces) being closed, we have discovered that Simon doesn’t hate small hikes in the woods after all. At least not if he can continue thinking about math along the way.
Last week, we spent a good deal of our walk arguing whether math has been invented or discovered, juxtaposing a Plato-like ideal view on math to a more rational one, that I believe Stephen Wolfram shares, that math is an artifact. In the end, Simon brought us to a whole new level of abstract thinking, saying that, of course, math is made up, i.e. it has been invented, but just like everything that is made up it has also been discovered because the idea of anything that has been or will be invented already exists somewhere as information.
This week, Simon brought a sheet of paper to solve a puzzle he had seen on Euclidea https://www.euclidea.xyz/ — a wonderful learning environment for geometric constructions and proofs done the fun way (we believe, built by Russian developers).
Geeks out of the box 