I am a regular reader of Ash Jogalekar’s blog Curious Wavefunction, but I found my way to his latest via the eclectic website 3 Quarks Daily, also highly recommended. I could not resist the title, “Mathematics, And The Excellence Of The Life It Brings”. The entirety of the post was about the mathematician Shing-Tung Yau’s recent memoir, The Shape of a Life, but Jogalekar’s introductory remarks about his personal involvement with mathematics stirred so many personal recollections of my own, that I thought I would provide an excerpt, followed by my own comments. Furthermore, he also addresses in passing the perennial question of whether math is invented or discovered.
See Math and the Excellence of Life
(Update 8/9/2021) Jogalekar’s story about his embracing math and the effect Simmon’s topology book had on him is even more amazing than I thought. Throughout his younger years he had always been labeled “bad at math” and did poorly in school. But a teacher and Simmon’s book changed all that. He explains in a recent article in 3QuarksDaily, which I also provide here.
I can’t help singling out a section where he, too, extols the significance and importance of high school geometry (see my post “Down with Geometry”):
“… Purely through accident at this time, I had gotten my hands on a book on topology, a subject that I had become mildly interested in because of its deep connections to geometry; interestingly, while I was rather abysmal at algebra in school, I always did well with geometry because I was good at visualization. …
The topology book and the professor completely changed my outlook and saved me. I started doing well and tackling advanced topics and started to love math. I also got interested in physics and did well. Most importantly, I started appreciating the beauty of math. Over time I found that people interested in mathematics are generally of two kinds, although there’s some overlap: there are those who really enjoy mathematical puzzles and puzzle-like problems, relishing the raw process of problem-solving. Then there are others who simply enjoy the abstract nature of proofs and the connections between different topics: I am definitely part of this second group. In fact, another revelation I had was that most of the high school curriculum needed the students to be good at the former skill and had no appreciation of the latter, thus simply weeding out students like myself who wanted to understand the big picture and see the connections rather than just become adept at problem-solving.”
I confess I share this view and find it somewhat ironic that my website has devolved into a problem-solving source. I have tried to show the wider picture of fascinating connections, but that often takes more skill and time than I currently possess.
This is a great 
This is one the best articles I have read on gerrymandering regarding its political import, and of course it is by one of the most articulate mathematicians, Jordan Ellenberg:
A mathematics friend of mine just sent me this link to a 2017 
In light of subsequent events it may be that being a politician requires its own set of skills, but this praise of his profession of engineering before he became president casts the unfortunate Herbert Hoover in a different light. My father brought this surprising excerpt from Hoover’s autobiography to my attention years ago. I have highlighted the part that is especially insightful. Unfortunately, the balance of the chapter praising an engineer’s involvement in government does not fare as well, given the author, though a subsequent engineer US president, whatever his shortcomings, was never faulted for his honesty and moral rectitude. See the 
This 1975 New York Times article by Cyril Stanley Smith left an indelible impression over the years to the point that I wanted to capture it in digital format. I found a 1996 copy online, formatted it more closely to the original article, and found more recent images of the illustrations used in the original article. It is a powerful argument for the benefits of basic research vs. directed research. The pursuit of pure mathematics often is accused of being a product of imagination run rampant with no practical purpose. It is argued that Government expenditures of public moneys for research should be applied more to directed research that has specific practical goals with explicit criteria for success. It has always been difficult to argue otherwise. Smith’s article, however, goes a long way toward a rebuttal, as well as showing the benefits of play and artistic creativity for its own sake. See the