La chose essentielle, c’était que Serre à chaque fois sentait fortement la riche substance derrière un énoncé qui, de but em blanc, ne m’aurait sans doute fait ni chaud ni froid – et qu’il arrivait à “faire passer” cette perception d’une substance riche, tangible, mystérieuse – cette perception qui est en même temps désir de connaître cette substance, d’y pénétrer.—Recoltes et Semailles, page 556.
These words were written by Alexandre Grothendieck, the brilliant French mathematican, about his colleague Jean-Pierre Serre, whom he called a “detonator”, one who provided a spark that set the fuse burning for an explosion of ideas.
I find these words and the term detonator particularly apposite of our beloved colleague Maurice Bazin, taken so suddenly from us, because they describe his insatiable curiosity and desire to get to the bottom of things, to understand and “feel” things, whether about science, society or his fellow human beings. And it was never idle curiosity, but rather one with the intention of demystifying, reducing to the lowest common and comprehensible denominator, always maintaining rigor and rationality and involving everyone around him to discover together.
Maurice was always closing the gap between ideology and praxis, in his personal life as well as in the lives of people he came in contact with, determinedly following a path of mutual dialogue and inspiration. He taught us to be obstinate in order to achieve intellectual goals, but also to be flexible when practicality demanded it. He was never one to avoid dirtying his hands or shirk hard work, whether physical or mental. Whitewashing walls in the Espaço Ciência Viva hangar, doing carpentry to make exhibits, discussing the finer points of ethnomathematics and then going and living it in a tribe near São Gabriel da Cachoeira: all this he took in his stride, never hesitating to plunge in headfirst. Generosity with his time and affection also marked Maurice out as a very special individual.
We are bereft but privileged to have had the chance to be illuminated by someone so warm and human and yet so rational and rigorous, a mix that we will always miss and spend our lives trying to emulate.
I close with another quote from Grothendieck, that Maurice would have appreciated: Et toute science, quand nous l’entendons non comme un instrument de pouvoir et de domination, mais comme aventure de connaisance de notre espèce à travers les âges, n’est autre chose que cette harmonie, plus ou moins vaste et plus ou moins riche d’une époque à l’autre, qui se déploie au cours des générations et des siècles, par le délicat contrepoint de tous les thèmes apparus tour à tour, comme appelés du néant – Récoltes et Semailles, page P20.
Viva Ciência, Viva o Espaço de onde Maurice agora nos espia, com aquele olhar maroto.
20th October, 2009
These words were written by Alexandre Grothendieck, the brilliant French mathematican, about his colleague Jean-Pierre Serre, whom he called a “detonator”, one who provided a spark that set the fuse burning for an explosion of ideas.
I find these words and the term detonator particularly apposite of our beloved colleague Maurice Bazin, taken so suddenly from us, because they describe his insatiable curiosity and desire to get to the bottom of things, to understand and “feel” things, whether about science, society or his fellow human beings. And it was never idle curiosity, but rather one with the intention of demystifying, reducing to the lowest common and comprehensible denominator, always maintaining rigor and rationality and involving everyone around him to discover together.
Maurice was always closing the gap between ideology and praxis, in his personal life as well as in the lives of people he came in contact with, determinedly following a path of mutual dialogue and inspiration. He taught us to be obstinate in order to achieve intellectual goals, but also to be flexible when practicality demanded it. He was never one to avoid dirtying his hands or shirk hard work, whether physical or mental. Whitewashing walls in the Espaço Ciência Viva hangar, doing carpentry to make exhibits, discussing the finer points of ethnomathematics and then going and living it in a tribe near São Gabriel da Cachoeira: all this he took in his stride, never hesitating to plunge in headfirst. Generosity with his time and affection also marked Maurice out as a very special individual.
We are bereft but privileged to have had the chance to be illuminated by someone so warm and human and yet so rational and rigorous, a mix that we will always miss and spend our lives trying to emulate.
I close with another quote from Grothendieck, that Maurice would have appreciated: Et toute science, quand nous l’entendons non comme un instrument de pouvoir et de domination, mais comme aventure de connaisance de notre espèce à travers les âges, n’est autre chose que cette harmonie, plus ou moins vaste et plus ou moins riche d’une époque à l’autre, qui se déploie au cours des générations et des siècles, par le délicat contrepoint de tous les thèmes apparus tour à tour, comme appelés du néant – Récoltes et Semailles, page P20.
Viva Ciência, Viva o Espaço de onde Maurice agora nos espia, com aquele olhar maroto.
20th October, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment