Author: Scott Taylor, Professor of Mathematics, Colby College

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? Sometimes agreeing and sometimes disagreeing, André and Simone Weil were the sort of siblings who would argue about such questions. André achieved renown as a mathematician; Simone was a formidable philosopher and mystic. André focused on applying algebra and geometry to deep questions about the structures of whole numbers, while…