"[W]e can try and apply logic to other areas of life... [I]ts very frustrating if we try... with the expectation that that works. ...[I]t doesnt mean we shouldnt try ...[I]ts always good to try and understand everything else according to logic, but... this is the fate of many mathematicians who... get... frustrated with the actual world, because nothing behaves the way we want... Whereas in the beautiful mathematical world everything does behave..."
Eugenia Loh-Gene Cheng is a British mathematician, educator and concert pianist. Her mathematical interests include higher category theory, and as a pianist she specialises in lieder and art song. She is also known for explaining mathematics to non-mathematicians to combat math phobia, often using analogies with food and baking. Cheng is a scientist-in-residence at the School of the Art Institute
"All our dreams can come true as long as we have the right dreams... [A]s long as we think logically, this is the world where everything behaves correctly, and... where any toy we want, we can play with, as soon as weve dreamed it up."
"We can go through life, and this is why people do believe they can go through life without needing to know any maths... [S]o when... we go "Math is really important!" They can just go, "Well, I dont... do any of those things, and Im just fine." ...Yeah, you can be just fine, but wouldnt you like to be better?"
"I am going to show that mathematics... is precisely "that which is easy.""
"... I wish we could educate people not just to be able to do things and know things, but to be nicer humans — and to get their self-esteem not from being better at something than someone else — but from how much they are able to help someone else do something."
"[S]omething is easy if it is attainable by logical thought processes.... without having to resort to imagination, guesswork, luck, gut feeling, convoluted interpretation, leaps of faith... drugs, violence... [etc.]"
"[I]n order to study anything logically, we have to ignore all the pesky details that prevent it from behaving logically, and... move into the idealized world... rather than the real world of things... [T]his... is what... abstraction... is..."