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g.lemaitre
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Definition: to kick away the ladder: to rely on someone else for help, then when you get to the top and don't need help anymore you kick away the ladder so that no one else can get the help you received.
This is what mathematicians do. Math textbooks are written in a highly opaque, jargon-laden style so much so that you need a private tutor to sit down with you and tell you what it means. As the student finally gets the hang of it, and becomes a full-fledged mathematician rather than write textbooks so that beginners can understand it and won't be in need of a private tutor they instead kick away the ladder so that anyone else who reads it will have to resort elsewhere in order to get the hang of it.
Here's a quote from Peter Woit that backs up directly what I'm saying:
This is what mathematicians do. Math textbooks are written in a highly opaque, jargon-laden style so much so that you need a private tutor to sit down with you and tell you what it means. As the student finally gets the hang of it, and becomes a full-fledged mathematician rather than write textbooks so that beginners can understand it and won't be in need of a private tutor they instead kick away the ladder so that anyone else who reads it will have to resort elsewhere in order to get the hang of it.
Here's a quote from Peter Woit that backs up directly what I'm saying:
The culture of mathematics values highly precision, rigor, and abstraction, not the sort of imprecise motivational material and carefully worked out examples that make a subject accessible to someone from the outside trying to get some idea of what is going on. This makes the research literature often impenetrable to all but those already expert in a field. There is often a somewhat intellectually macho attitude among some mathematicians, an attitude that since they overcame great hurdles to understand something, there’s no reason to make it easier and encourage others less talented and dedicated than themselves