As Sebald writes in Austerlitz,
Why does time stand eternally still and motionless in one place, and rush headlong by in another?
Being obliged, as I explained yesterday, to digest a good deal of both perfectoid geometry and derived algebraic geometry just in order to “stand… still and motionless in one place” — Kantor will be relieved to know that he is under no such obligation — I am wondering whether there has been an objective Beschleunigung in the development of the subject or whether it just appears to be the case. Voynich made the point that there are colleagues who don’t share the Angst expressed in yesterday’s post, and this has the effect of suggesting that it’s not so much that the time of research is rushing “headlong by” but rather that this blog’s author is visibly decelerating. Nothing, I’m sure, could be farther from Voynich’s mind than such dismally Kuhnian speculations!
Comments 0