Math and Creative Writing

[alanajoli]

Having read the post from Whedonesque written by Joss Whedon about how many people don't consider writing to be "work," fellow Browncoat Nitsan (aka Snackyette) wrote:

"I'm a mathematician, and what I do each day is in many ways similar to what a writer does. I go to my office and I sit, think, write some things down that other people haven't thought of yet (hopefully), think some more, read something to give me background or ideas, think some more, write some more, and then listen to someone else talk about what they're thinking about.

"Most people find it incomprehensible that I think about math and come up with new math for a living, kind of like making a living out of thinking about stories and coming up with new ones."

I've often compared musicians, theater folks, and visual artists to writers, but it had never before occurred to me to think of math as a creative profession. The idea enchanted me so much that I asked Nitsan if I could pass it along. It also makes me wonder what other professions I've taken for granted that are both work--and creative!

Comments

[holmes-iv.livejournal.com]

<raises hand>
Or at least, we like to think it is. ;-)

Thing is, Software also (like writing) has sub-disciplines attached to it that are uncreative as hell (I refer here to the local equivalent of fixing other people's grammar and spelling, which is what I'm doing this evening). And those are the parts that are easy to explain to people who don't have a background in the field.

We also have our share of crack-smoking higher-ups who think that it's all strictly mechanical, and that nine women can etc., and that you improve people's productivity by making them scared about deadlines. The similarity ends when you consider salaries, though (he says, thankfully).

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

I just did the obit on John W. Backus for a series called Newsmakers. (For those in the audience who, like me until last month or so, haven't heard of him, he's the guy who led the team that developed Fortran, which is basically the forerunner to all software in existence.) I totally believe in the creativity of software designers and computer speak. Although in everything I've read, technological creativity almost always comes out of laziness... Backus himself said that he was too lazy to want to code each computer individually, so he went about finding an easier way!

I also kind of love the idea of creativity from laziness in general. :)