Today's Sunday reflection comes from Bruce Schechter's biography of Paul Erdös, "My Brain Is Open":
"Mathematicians are finite, flawed beings who spend their lives trying to understand the infinite and perfect. That kind of thing is bound to result in problems and misunderstandings. Trends and fashion, politics and pig-headedness all affect the lurching progress of mathematical knowledge. None of them, however, affect the validity of mathematical knowledge. 'There are many ways,' [Edward] Rothstein writes, 'to show that the ratio between the circumference of any any circle and its diameter is always the same, a number known as pi. The priests, farmers, and builders who first used that ratio may have had various intentions and goals. And the ratio may be given names like pi or zed or Milwaukee, for that matter. But the number and its meaning are unaffected by cultural apparatus and influence.'"
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