“The beautiful French Bourbakian edifice of mathematics is really some re-elaboration of the fact that it’s all about science, it’s all about borrowing from actual observation. Pythagoras’ theorem is from a guy who wanted to get from point A to point B; he was a sailor, so he figured out how to calculate the distance with two reference points – and that part of mathematics is what I lived from my mid-20s until now. After seeing the whole edifice, [I was] able to think about it and the structure, understanding that this structure is nourished by observation, by science, by economics, a lot by physics.”
Marco Avellaneda, Wilmott Magazine, September 2013
