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The Conversation
The Conversation
Scott Taylor, Professor of Mathematics, Colby College

The mystic and the mathematician: What the towering 20th-century thinkers Simone and André Weil can teach today’s math educators

André Weil (left, in 1956) and Simone Weil (in 1922) were siblings who became prominent in mathematics and philosophy, respectively. Konrad Jacobs (right) and Anonymous (left) via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Like most mathematicians, I hear confessions from complete strangers: the inevitable “I was always bad at math.” I suppress the response, “You are forgiven, my child.”

Why does it feel like a sin to struggle in math? Why are so many traumatized by their mathematics education? Is learning math worthwhile?

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