Dean Yeralan visited his former school, The University of Missouri – Columbia to talk about his recently developed coursework on Sustainable Systems Engineering.
Sustainability
lingering on the fringes of reality
“In logical terms, the distinction between provable results and statements that elude proof within a given formal system marks one of the deepest fissures in mathematics. It is this very elusiveness that often haunts the mathematical spirit. To labor toward certainty and find its boundaries staring back can leave one bitter, restless, or quietly resigned. Yet within that futility lies a peculiar grace – the Sisyphean rhythm of pushing the boulder, knowing it will roll again by dawn, yet pushing still. It is the same Zen moment in which the strawberry tastes the sweetest just as our grip on the branch begins to fail. Such is the mathematician’s paradox: clarity and melancholy entwined, forever chasing the infinite with finite hands.“
S. Yeralan
[from the book Lambda Calculus]