-From a discussion of thinking and aging by Experienced Lecturer John
Barrow in his wonderful book, "Impossibility," Oxford UP, 1998:
"It might seem advantageous always to take the easy route: to learn the
subject from the standard well-tried textbook or from the experienced
lecturer. It might be, but beware. Experience shows that it is in the
process of first learning the subject that you are most likely to have
new ideas about it." (p115)
Perhaps this disguised paradox explains the mistaken conclusion that
creative mathematics is confined to the young.
Bill Everdell, Brooklyn