My life is not a conveyor belt
Jan. 13th, 2023 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
posicЮрий Иванович Манин, великий математик и замечательный человек, умер 7 января 2023 года на 86м году жизни. Мне посчастливилось быть с ним знакомым, но этот постинг не об этом. В моей фейсбучной ленте, зачастую под замком, обсуждаются разные высказывания, цитаты из интервью и т.д. Вынесу одну такую цитату в открытый доступ в чуть расширенном виде:
CC: What was your motivation to move from an area to a completely different one, not once, but several times? Did these transitions affect your “productivity” in the short term?
YIM: I love mathematics, this great vast realm of human spirit, I am interested in its various aspects, I would like to understand as much of it as I can, and there is no other way than studying and working in various areas in turn. Productivity?? My life is not a conveyor belt, this word is not in my vocabulary.
CC: The inscription (promoted by academic bureaucrats) “publish or perish” is on all Graduate Schools walls. There is no better rebuttal than your statement: “Productivity? This word is not in my vocabulary”.
YIM: “Publish or perish” is a joke, of course... And a mild joke with a grain of sadness is the best way to cope with existential anxiety.
Говорят, это взято из книжки "The human face of computing", а имя интервьюера -- Christian Calude. Вот ссылка на полный текст интервью, найденный поиском в интернете -- https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/2292/21337/438YIManin.pdf .
Мой короткий комментарий, вынесенный из-под замка (естественно, мой взгляд на вещи совсем иной, чем у Ю.И.):
To me, mathematics is a calling, not a career. And it is not a "realm of human spirit", there is nothing particularly human about mathematics, as far as I can tell. The word "productivity" does exist in my vocabulary. Not because my life is a conveyor belt, but because it is finite and I do not want to waste any part of it. This has nothing to do with changing or not changing areas, of course. Having a time gap in one's sequence of publications does not mean reduced productivity. It may mean enhanced productivity, if it makes one's papers more substantial.
CC: What was your motivation to move from an area to a completely different one, not once, but several times? Did these transitions affect your “productivity” in the short term?
YIM: I love mathematics, this great vast realm of human spirit, I am interested in its various aspects, I would like to understand as much of it as I can, and there is no other way than studying and working in various areas in turn. Productivity?? My life is not a conveyor belt, this word is not in my vocabulary.
CC: The inscription (promoted by academic bureaucrats) “publish or perish” is on all Graduate Schools walls. There is no better rebuttal than your statement: “Productivity? This word is not in my vocabulary”.
YIM: “Publish or perish” is a joke, of course... And a mild joke with a grain of sadness is the best way to cope with existential anxiety.
Говорят, это взято из книжки "The human face of computing", а имя интервьюера -- Christian Calude. Вот ссылка на полный текст интервью, найденный поиском в интернете -- https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/2292/21337/438YIManin.pdf .
Мой короткий комментарий, вынесенный из-под замка (естественно, мой взгляд на вещи совсем иной, чем у Ю.И.):
To me, mathematics is a calling, not a career. And it is not a "realm of human spirit", there is nothing particularly human about mathematics, as far as I can tell. The word "productivity" does exist in my vocabulary. Not because my life is a conveyor belt, but because it is finite and I do not want to waste any part of it. This has nothing to do with changing or not changing areas, of course. Having a time gap in one's sequence of publications does not mean reduced productivity. It may mean enhanced productivity, if it makes one's papers more substantial.
