Do Mathematics

You certainly remember the library, which I described to you exactly one year ago. It will soon be two years since I saw the foundations for the first time. The building has been standing for some time now, but the interior is still under construction. At the moment, I hope, the only problems are some issues with insulation, otherwise it is ready. If everything goes according to the plan now, the library will finally open in December. I have to admit, I cannot wait.

Christmas, however, is celebrated in November here, to allow students to celebrate it together. The so called Oxmas is usually celebrated via the secret Santa method. Every student is assigned someone else to give a present to. Last year I was given a mug, but this year a library would be enough. Either way, I wonder what I will get this year.

Next week my brother Stanley will come visit me. The Kellner Family Foundation also supported him in his studies of mathematics at the University of Warwick. I will probably talk to him about various interesting things, for instance my new favourite subject, namely Metric Spaces and Complex Analysis.

It is also possible, that we will talk about Japanese, which I took up this term. This peculiar language is very different from English. It has unusual  word order, complicated grammar and distinct pronunciation as well as writing. Besides two duplicate syllabic alphabets, for example, it has a set of logographs imported from Chinese. Japanese grammar is another whole story, but we have not got to that yet. In short, most of the material is completely new to me, but that is actually intentional.

On a related note, I have been asking myself recently, if it is meaningful and reasonable to assume that mathematics is a language. It is clear that mathematics stands or falls by its linguistic features, such as its grammar and syntax. I am not certain, however, if mathematics can be reduced to this single aspect. It is also possible that it lacks some key features to be a called proper language. Furthermore, these two possibilities do not contradict each other. Without a doubt, much has been said and written on this topic. I will, however, not make too heavy weather of it now and I will, so to speak, do mathematics instead.