I’ll begin with a comment on the title of the blog, Doppelaussagen.

For the past year, I’ve been living in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany while my wife is resident director of the Academic Year in Freiburg study abroad program. It seemed fitting to honor my time in Germany and efforts in learning the language by giving the blog a German title.

As a mathematician it seems that so much of what I do circles around things that can be proven, which are all tautologies. One way of talking without saying anything is to use a tautology. The exciting part of proving something in mathematics, comes from the fact that though anything you prove rigorously is a tautology, it sometimes very unclear why something needs to be true. This pleasure is similar to the allure of solving Sudoku puzzles; once you’ve solved a problem you start looking for the next one.

Of course, some tautologies get more play than others. Any guesses on the author of these?

I think we agree, the past is over.

Our nation must come together to unite.

But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.