TITLE: Superior Ideas
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: November 17, 2018  4:00 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 In February 1943, an American friend sent physicist Freeman Dyson
 a copy of Kurt Gödel's "The Consistency of the Continuum
 Hypothesis" while he was an undergrad at Cambridge.  Dyson wrote
 home about it to his parents:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 I have been reading the immortal work (it is only sixty pages long)
 alternately with <B>The Magic Mountain</B> and find it hard to say
 which one is better.  Mann of course writes better English (or
 rather the translator does); on the other hand the superiority of
 the ideas in G&ouml;del just about makes up for that.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 Imagine that, only five years later, Dyson would be "drinking tea
 with G&ouml;del at his home in Princeton".  Of course, after
 having taken classes with the likes of Hardy and Dirac, Dyson was
 well-prepared.  He seems to have found himself surrounded by
 superior ideas much of his life and, despite his modesty, added a
 few himself.

 I've never read <EM>The Magic Mountain</EM>, or any Mann, for
 that matter.  I will correct that soon.  However, Mann will have
 to wait until I finish Dyson's <EM>Maker of Patterns</EM>, in
 which I found this passage.  It is a quite readable memoir that
 interleaves letters Dyson wrote to his family over the course of
 thirty-some years with explanatory text and historical asides.
 I'm glad I picked it up.
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