“You have only some kind of limited capacity in your head, so you can’t do too complicated things.”
A Peter Scholze quote from the article that captures for me one of the two common aspects of programming and mathematics, that we make progress by building better and better conceptual machines (the intellectual equivalents of levers, pulleys, inclined planes, etc.) to multiply our limited limited capacity to solve more and more difficult problems.
Edit/PS: You can see how highly mathematicians respect simplification by the story in the article about how Peter Scholze first became internationally famous in the mathematical community, by discovering a new solution for an already solved problem. His solution was much shorter (and apparently easier to follow,) and that was taken as a sign of exceptional ability, just as it is in programming.
A Peter Scholze quote from the article that captures for me one of the two common aspects of programming and mathematics, that we make progress by building better and better conceptual machines (the intellectual equivalents of levers, pulleys, inclined planes, etc.) to multiply our limited limited capacity to solve more and more difficult problems.
Edit/PS: You can see how highly mathematicians respect simplification by the story in the article about how Peter Scholze first became internationally famous in the mathematical community, by discovering a new solution for an already solved problem. His solution was much shorter (and apparently easier to follow,) and that was taken as a sign of exceptional ability, just as it is in programming.