Mathematicians definitely spend just as much time throwing around the word “creativity” as people in more conventionally artistic fields.

I was reading a bunch of articles written by math people and noticed this, and then I remembered that the math contests I wrote in high school all had some spiel about expressing creativity on them.

I also found contest math to actually be interesting, despite being pretty disastrous at it (which… most people are too but still). Like I remember once banging my head against some practice problem until someone pointed out a super elegant solution to me and I was like, how does your brain even do that???? I hate the way math is taught in school.

If you ever buy a printer, here’s a short PSA:

• If you’re using a laser printer, no matter what paper you use, everything will come out looking the same, because the toner sits on top on the paper (so the surface you’ll end up looking at will be bonded toner, not paper). This can be good or bad, depending on how suitable the toner look is for what you’re doing.

My favourite thing about language is how it can be used to express ambiguity with such delightful precision. I mean, I can’t do it, but I’m jealous of people who can.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that if someone is able to do something super cool and I can’t even begin to understand how they came up with it, it might be because they’ve built up more layers of knowledge that have become automatic, which frees up their brain to handle more complexity than mine can with its limited context.

Of course a toddler isn’t going to try to write a novel, sentences might not even be automatic yet.

I think there’s a difference between music that is confusing and music that is confused. It can be a fine line sometimes, but if it sounds confused, that’s not a good thing.