WEBVTT

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Hi, when you hear the word logic, what comes

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to mind? Maybe it's rules. If this is true, then

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that must be true. Or maybe you picture a debate

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where two people are trying to prove who is right.

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Or perhaps logic feels cold and mechanical, the

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opposite of things like beauty, creativity, or

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wonder. Well, that makes sense to me, but recently

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I taught a four -week workshop. It was called

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Where Logic Meets Beauty. And I came away thinking

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about logic differently. During our workshop,

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we explored some surprisingly simple mathematical

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ideas. And of course, they were profound as well.

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We looked at patterns among numbers. We drew

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a square and wondered about the length of its

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diagonal. We explored infinity and discovered

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that strangely enough, Some infinities are larger

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than others. Throughout our workshop, we would

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notice something beautiful or surprising at first,

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and then logic allowed us to go deeper. One phrase

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became the theme during the workshop, and that

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is, beauty invites us to notice, logic helps

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us to understand why. That really resonated with

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me. Now, perhaps the purpose of logic is not

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simply to win arguments or prove that we're right.

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Maybe logic is one of those tools that we have

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for seeing things more clearly. Think about a

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beautiful sunset. You can simply enjoy it. There's

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nothing wrong with that, but learning something

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about light and how different wavelengths scatter

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throughout the atmosphere doesn't necessarily

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make the sunset less beautiful. it may actually

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give you another reason to marvel at it. In my

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mind, that's how mathematics works. Sometimes

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I see a pattern and think, wow, that is beautiful.

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But then another question comes, why does it

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work? Why does that pattern keep happening? Is

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it just a coincidence? Or will it always happen?

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How could I know? And this is where logic enters

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the picture. place wonder, sometimes logic is

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what allows wonder to deepen. And I think that

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idea reaches beyond math. We all have things

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that we believe about ourselves, about others,

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and about God, and about the world around us.

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I think it's worth asking not only what do I

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believe, but also why do I believe it? So this

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week we're going to explore logic. And it's not

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just simply a collection of rules. but more as

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a way of looking more carefully. Because I've

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discovered that sometimes the more carefully

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we look, the more there is to see.