In the obituary of John Nash, The Economist (May 30-June 5) refers to his saying that "a line drawn on a multi-dimensional idealised piece of paper remains the same length no matter how tightly it is crumpled". I find this, and other utterances attributed to this mathematical wizard, fascinating.
This proposition is equally applicable in global affairs. As much as one tries to resort to sophism or half-baked formulae to deal with problems at hand or created, the former will not go away and, on the contrary, might as well haunt us with a vengeance. Flash points are too many to enumerate. Existing resolutions are too unconvincing to be seriously considered. The problems will stand, unaltered, given that the remedy might kill the patient altogether.
No comments:
Post a Comment