
My Father André Weil (2018) [pdf] - susam
https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201801/rnoti-p54.pdf
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myg204
Thanks for posting.

Others may be interested in this short clip of Weil talking at the 46 minutes
mark of “The Story of Maths” documentary:
[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ejqof](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ejqof)

A rare sight, as there isn’t a lot of recording of him online.

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xx__yy
Thanks for sharing - that was interesting to watch

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susam
One of my favourite stories about André Weil from the book "The Music of the
Primes" written by Marcus du Sautoy:

> He wrote to his wife, Eveline, on April 7, 1940, telling her, 'My
> mathematics work is proceeding beyond my wildest hopes, and I am even a bit
> worried - if it is only in prison that I work so well, will I have to
> arrange to spend two or three months locked up every year?'

~~~
082349872349872
For another silver lining, confer
[https://math.mit.edu/~hrm/papers/ss.pdf](https://math.mit.edu/~hrm/papers/ss.pdf)

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tmilard
Super gifted people. For sure.

As a frenchman, as well as a father I feel so amazed by this way of using each
hour, even each minute as a mean to learn something. France as a enlighten
tradition with mathematics. Because of these patio aged people.

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throrthaway
The reason France's math output is so stellar is because of the controversial
grand école system - pretty much every great French mathematician you can name
came out of one of the top 2 schools. It's very elitist (and the elitism is
misplaced since the system as well as the schools are virtually unknown
outside of France compared to, say, the Ivies) but it does have results.

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082349872349872
> "Every moment needed to be usefully or pleasantly employed."

Personally, the 2'000 year old formulation:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Poetica_(Horace)#Key_conce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Poetica_\(Horace\)#Key_concepts)

in which every moment should be _instructively_ or pleasantly employed (the
difference between useful and enlightening being roughly equivalent to the
difference between working and hacking), is preferable.

[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0065)

Edit: Incidentally, Paul Lauterbur's connection was MRI.

