iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andrew Krause

@blindmath.bsky.social

591 followers 1.1K following 188 posts

Chronically-Ill Nearsighted Mathematician and Amateur Human. Co-creator of VisualPDE.com (irony!) (he/him) www.andrewkrause.org

Posts Replies Media

Andrew Krause @blindmath.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

If I remember correctly, this meme originated about 10 years ago, with the Gramsci via Žižek quote perhaps a bit earlier. It seems increasingly relevant for academia, if not the entire state of the world. Hopefully soon we will learn how to slay these monsters...

A colorful drawing of a smiling unicorn and crescent moon against a starry rainbow background, overlaid with text: “The old world is dying. The new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”

041

Andrew Krause @blindmath.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Here is one response emphasizing the need for new ideas which often (but do not always) come from theorists. It's extracted from an excellent recent bit of writing from @philipcball.bsky.social: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Text which says:

"It is rather ironic, then, that Bird (2013) claims that ‘in biology, ideas are relatively cheap’. I would suggest that rather, in biology (especially molecular biology and neuroscience) ideas are rather rare. It is data that are, if not cheap, then abundant to the point of excess, and it is possible to make a career collecting data that one is never obliged to interpret. It is rather in physics that ideas tend to come cheaply and almost casually, especially when data are scarce – witness the flood of theoretical papers always submitted to the physics preprint servers to ‘explain’ some new, tentative anomaly in high-energy physics that turns out to evaporate on closer inspection."

030

Andrew Krause @blindmath.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

"Unputdownable" is an apt description of quite a lot of @stevenstrogatz.com's writing! I'm glad to see such passion from a student who asked for summer reading recommendations 😀.

The beginning of an email which reads:

"Hello Andrew,

I just wanted to give you an update a week after our meeting. I have gone to the national library in the city to acquire and lend the books you suggested, they didn’t have the ones on PDEs, so I will have to go to a library further out to get those.

However, I’ve now started on Steven Strogatz’s unputdownable “Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos” which, funnily enough, I found more compelling than many non-academic books."

1131

Andrew Krause @blindmath.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Related is the following passage from Levins, arguing for the need of diversity in schools of thought/paradigms in science: www.jstor.org/stable/27836...

Text which says:

"
You said:
Uploaded image
Can you transcribe the two paragraphs here into text I can copy and paste?

ChatGPT said:
Here is a clean transcription of the two paragraphs:

Unlike the theory, models are restricted by technical considerations to a few components at a time, even in systems which are complex. Thus a satisfactory theory is usually a cluster of models. These models are related to each other in several ways: as coordinate alternative models for the same set of phenomena, they jointly produce robust theorems; as complementary models they can cope with different aspects of the same problem and give complementary as well as overlapping results; as hierarchically arranged “nested” models, each provides an interpretation of the sufficient parameters of the next higher level where they are taken as given. In Figure 3 we show schematically the relations among some of the models in the theory of community structure.

The multiplicity of models is imposed by the contradictory demands of a complex, heterogeneous nature and a mind that can only cope with few variables at a time; by the contradictory desiderata of generality, realism, and precision; by the need to understand and also to control; even by the opposing esthetic standards which emphasize the stark simplicity and power of a general theorem as against the richness and the diversity of living nature. These conflicts are irreconcilable. Therefore, the alternative approaches even of contending schools are part of a larger mixed strategy. But the conflict is about method, not nature, for the individual models, while they are essential for understanding reality, should not be confused with that reality itself."

120

Andrew Krause @blindmath.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Join us this September 8-11th for the Durham Symposium on Mathematical Approaches to Spatial Biology! Organized with @gcelora.bsky.social @valeriagiunta.bsky.social and Denis Patterson. This will be an exciting and interactive discussion-driven event! sites.google.com/view/durham-...

2179

Andrew Krause @blindmath.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

You may enjoy @philipcball.bsky.social's excellent Éloge on Evelyn Fox Keller, which calls for a rethink of metaphors for how we conceptualize biology. A good counterpoint to this oldschool view of theory in biology.

A photo of text which reads:

It is rather ironic, then, that Bird (2013) claims that 'in biology, ideas are relatively cheap'. I would suggest that rather, in biology (especially molecular biology and neuroscience) ideas are rather rare. It is data that are, if not cheap, then abundant to the point of excess, and it is possible to make a career collecting data that one is never obliged to interpret. It is rather in physics that ideas tend to come cheaply and almost casually, especially when data are scarce - witness the flood of theoretical papers always submitted to the physics preprint servers to 'explain' some new, tentative anomaly in high-energy physics that turns out to evaporate on closer inspection.

1114

Andrew Krause @blindmath.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

A quote from Turing's 1952 "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis":

A quote which reads:

1. A model of the embryo: Morphogens

In this section a mathematical model of the growing embryo will be described. This model will be a simplification and an idealization, and consequently a falsification. It is to be hoped that the features retained for discussion are those of greatest importance in the present state of knowledge.

030

Andrew Krause @blindmath.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Join us in Durham for a fully-funded multidisciplinary PhD studying Metals, Microbes, Maths, and Metabolism! Please pass this along to interested candidates who are welcome to contact us directly. Both theoretical and/or experimental backgrounds welcome! iapetus2.ac.uk/studentships...

An aerial photo of the centre of Durham city on a snowy winter day. A river encircles the centre containing Durham's Castle and Cathedral.

Photo courtesy of RJX Media.

0158

Andrew Krause @blindmath.bsky.social · 23/10/2023

New additions to my office thanks to my partner and her mom! Getting into the Halloween spirit with monsters and spooky asymptotics 😉.

A photo of several crocheted creatures surrounding the textbook "Advanced Mathematical Methods for Scientists and Engineers: Asymptotic Methods and Perturbation Theory." The crocheted creatures include a red and gray squirrel, a mimic chest, a beholder, and a munchkin kitten in a munchkin pumpkin.

251