It’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog! I confess I fell into the typical problem of having a project which I abandoned, but I’d like to try writing some more things here. There have been many times which I’ve wished I had a place to type up something more longform, completely forgetting all of the time I took to set up Jekyll here lol.
I thought I’d start with something small and neat I found. I was browsing David Speyer’s notes from PROMYS 2024 on Galois theory when I noticed an interesting quote in Worksheet 12:
An author never harms his readers so much as when he conceals a difficulty.
Evariste Galois
I’m something of a Galois enjoyer myself and had never heard of this quote before, so I decided to do some digging. (Surely this must’ve been an anomaly!) Google showed me AZ Quotes, which helpfully cited
“Deux mémoires d’Analyse pure”. Manuscript by Evariste Galois (Preface), October 8, 1831, as quoted in “Manuscrits de Évariste Galois” edited by Jules Tannery (p. 27), translated, 1908. (Wikipedia link added by me)
Alright, let’s go looking for this source. The National Library of France helpfully has an OCRed copy here. The relevant part in the original French says:
C’est que, malheureusement, on ne se doute pas que le livre le plus précieux du plus savant serait celui où il dirait tout ce qu’il ne sait pas, c’est qu’on ne se doute pas qu’un auteur ne [nuit] jamais tant à ses lecteurs que quand il dissimule une dif- ficulté.
I got the general gist of this (thanks high school French) but it would be nice if there was an English translation. Fortunately, Peter M. Neumann came in clutch with his translation of Galois’ work. (The PDF of the original book is easily acquirable through the usual means. Highly recommended!) The original manuscript which Neumann references (as opposed to this secondary source compiling Galois’ quotes) is evidently very messy, with lots of crossed-out words and words written literally between the lines. He translates these lines as
Unhappily one cannot doubt that the most precious book of the greatest scientist will be that in which he says everything that he does not know; one cannot doubt that an author never [betrays] his readers so much as when he hides a difficulty.
So it does appear to be a real Galois quote! Incidentally, the brackets are because in the original text, the word “nuit” is missing and only the letter “n” is visible, making it a logical guess as to what he wrote. So interestingly enough, it turns out the quote is accurate, but is fudged a little.