(Note: this essay is dedicated to my father, the mathematician Henri Moscovici, and in memory of my mother, Elvira Moscovici, mathematics teacher)

Elvira Moscovici, 1962

It’s only relatively recently in cultural history—during the past hundred years or so–that the disciplines became so highly specialized (and advanced) that it’s nearly impossible for anyone to be “cutting edge” in both the arts/humanities and science/mathematics. But the fields of human knowledge did not used to be so sharply delineated. Plato, for instance, was not only a great writer of dialogues and one of the greatest philosophers of all time, but also an outstanding mathematician. The school he founded in 387 BC, the Academy of Athens, was inspired by Pythagoras and emphasized mathematics as the foundation for all the other fields