One man, millions of ideas

Does anyone remember Bertrand Russell? He’s always been one of my heroes because he was not afraid of doubt. Philosopher, logician, author of the Principia Mathematica with Alfred North Whitehead, Nobel Prize for literature at the age of 78: “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought”. His well-known antinomy known as Russell’s Paradox shook the foundations of mathematics and started ramifications which are maybe not yet fully understood (it is enough to mention the two incompletness theorems stated by Kurt Gödel in order to solve the problem). He died in 1970, aged 97, so he didn’t live long enough to know Photoshop. Yet I think that if he were alive he would have something to say on some preconceptions which cross our field, and he would whip into place several wrong ideas we’ve been living with for too long.