| The narrator in this work of mathematical fiction attends both a music festival and a math research conference. This allows the author, a math professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, to compare and contrast them. However, this is done in a humorous way by swapping descriptions that one would expect for one of them for the other. For instance, the folk concert is described as a dry affair where the audience does not understand or really appreciate what the musicians are doing, while the math conference begins with a "jam session" where a group of researchers improvise a proof.
I must say that I enjoy math conferences much more than the narrator enjoys the music festival in the story. Of course, each person has the right to their own opinion, but I worry that this story will give people who do not have their own experience with math conferences an undeservedly negative opinion of them.
This work was published in the Mathematical Intelligencer Volume 37, Number 3. |
