“Think independently!”—I can still remember how excited I was the first time I heard this sentence from an inspiring professor, but it took much longer to realize what it meant for me to “think independently” in China.
It was very hard to write a paper about it. I felt like someone who had discovered the meaning of life and couldn’t explain it to anybody else.
Edward Witten in Geometric Langlands, Khovanov Homology, String Theory
This was my initiation to the mysteries of higher mathematics. Waking up every day, reading Pólya, walking around the lake, turning his problems around in my head until I would find a solution.
Olga Holtz in My Random Walks with Pólya and Szegő
The Yemeni manuscript collections constitute a unique treasure trove for large segments of the Islamic intellectual tradition—Sunni as well as Shii—much of which has not survived anywhere else in the Islamic world.
