By the time he began working on Capital in the Twenty-First Century, he had an advantage over previous writers on inequality: an unprecedented historical database on taxes, incomes and wealth, mostly on the US and a few European countries. “The main particularity of my thinking is that I can base […]
The Legacy of Math Luminary John Conway, Lost to Covid-19
In modern mathematics, many of the biggest advances are great elaborations of theory. Mathematicians move mountains, but their strength comes from tools, highly sophisticated abstractions that can act like a robotic glove, enhancing the wearer’s strength. John Conway was a throwback, a natural problem-solver whose unassisted feats often left his […]