Talk:Tristan Needham

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The description "highly original" for Needham's book, whilst possibly true, appears unnecessary and too subjective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.49.229 (talk • contribs) 18:23, 26 October 2006


 * I disagree. It's the defining characteristic of the book. Indeed, if the book were not original, there is no reason to have an article on Needham. I added references to two reviews which show that it's not subjective. I think it's okay to say that the book is highly original, but if necessary, we could go for the more weasel-y "the book is considered to be highly original". -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 08:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the addition of the citation to the review. This justifies the use of "highly original". With the citation, I don't believe it necessary to go as far as "is considered to be highly original".


 * Just surveying the other books on complex analysis in libraries and bookstores pretty much validates that claim.DivisionByZer0 03:51, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

"Unorthodox" would be more accurate. By and large, the book simply popularizes ideas due to Penrose, rather than promulgating anything new. For Penrose's version, see "The Road to Reality."


 * Isn't The Road to Reality a physics book? What ideas there is Needham popularizing?  It seems to me like Needham's approach is some kind of hybrid platonist philosophy with an antiformalist intuitionist methodology focused on geometric visualization applied to the whole subject of complex analysis.  Applying this approach to the whole subject of complex analysis seems to me to be unique, whether or not the ideas first appeared in Penrose's book which is to my knowledge primarily a physics book, whereas Needham's is primarily a mathematics book.  Also a number of the proofs and arguments are novel and have not appeared in the works of other authors.  Perhaps we could agree to just remove "highly" and keep original ;)? -- DivisionByZer0 (talk) 21:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is not a fair summary, though Penrose and Needham surely originally learned many of the same geometrical ideas from the same sources (Clifford, Möbius, Klein, Hilbert, ...). –jacobolus (t) 05:27, 22 January 2023 (UTC)