Cut The Knot!

In his Commencement address delivered to the mathematics graduating class of the University of California at Berkeley, Keith Devlin has infected the world with a meme virus "Mathematics makes the invisible visible" and furthered its spread by placing a little circumscribed copy into the August issue of the Focus newsletter. A short time later, an on-line version of the virus carrier has mysteriously surfaced on MAA Online.

Being in general agreement with the purpose encoded into the Devlin’s meme, I aim at offering assistance through a distribution of an immuno-depressant memetic virus "Cut The Knot!" whose life’s goal is to affect human behavior in certain ways as to weaken their resistance to Devlin’s and similar viruses.

A slew of connotations may make "Cut The Knot!" highly contagious.

Its historical roots may appeal to the proponents of the humanist mathematics - according to legend, Alexander the Great cut the Gordian Knot which led to his prompt conquest of a good portion of Asia. Cutting anything even not as complicated as the legendary knot, is a hands-on activity and, as everyone knows, the only way to master math is by doing math. Mentioning knots is suggestive of the fact little known outside the mathematical circles that math is not just about numbers and counting. Back to Alexander the Great, who could, at the time, foresee his solution to so difficult a problem? Thus "Cut The Knot!" reminds us of the need and utility of being creative. Most of all, "Cut The Knot!", in its personal appeal, underscores an individual’s responsibility to either (as the case might be) share and contribute or persevere and overcome (parentheses are not needed as the standard precedence rules apply.)

Memes, writes Devlin, are the thoughts and ideas that people produce and make public -- stories, tunes, poems, myths, beliefs, religions, scientific theories, and the like. Richard Dawkins, who coined the term, comments that "memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain." Now, it’s clear that, although memes may "be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically (Dawkins)", the human element plays a very important role in meme propagation.

R.Smullyan tells an anecdote about Zigmund Freud. Someone asked him, "Would you hold a man responsible for what he dreams?" Freud replied, "Whom else would you hold responsible?"

So, while Devlin wanted "to capture in a single, easily remembered slogan, the very essence of mathematics," "Cut The Knot!" reflects on a more modest goal. People will always disagree on the essence of mathematics (Sylvester thought that mathematics is essentially about seeing "differences in similarity, similarity in difference.") but they may agree that innumeracy is a diminishing condition, that mathematics appreciation enriches one’s life, and they eventually may agree to do something about it. Paraphrasing W.V.O.Quine, "Who are they?" - "Everyone".