(1) I am a (day)dreamer, a rêveur éveillé, some kind of dream-ναύτης; but—and this is a stroke of luck—I am also fiercely disillusioned, disenchanted, realistic. Strange case of Dr. Νικόλαος (scientiæ & litterarum auctŏr sed etiam artifex, vel eremiticus et innocuus vir) and Mr. Σοαλόκιν (rei publicæ mentibus captuum acerrimus hostis, id est officinæ stultitiæ inimicus)?
(2) Sometimes I like to solve problems, but what I find most amusing is to create problems: In re mathematica ars proponendi quaestionem pluris facienda est quam solvendi («In mathematics the art of proposing a problem must be [worth] more than solving it»), as G. Cantor writes [1]. Similarly, A. Grothendieck notes that mathematics is not, modestly, a problem-solving activity, but is, superbly, a creative, or constructive, activity, of abstract choses, and of problems arising together with them. About «the structure of a [mathematical] object», Grothendieck [2] points out that there is «inventiveness [inventivité] in this work», so that «we happen to perform as a blacksmith [forgeron] or a tenacious builder [bâtisseur] [...]. Thus we are lead to constantly “invent” the language capable of expressing, ever more finely, the intimate structure of the mathematical object, and to “construct”, with the help of this language, progressively and one step at a time, the [related] “theories”». Plainly, this pertains not only to mathematics but also to physics: take, for example, the words of A. Einstein & L. Infeld [3]: «The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science», or those of E. Fermi [4]: «[A]s a student one solves problems, but as a research worker one raises questions». Same thing in literature. One of Čechov’s favorite mottoes was: «The task of the writer is to pose problems [создавать проблемы], not find solutions [найти решения]».
(2 bis) A distinction between cocoon-men and visionaries lies here. The former are people locked up in their mental-workshop, and they are trying to be problem solvers, separately, each in his own compartmentalized department; whilst the others are dreamers, who look beyond the hedge, who are willing to navigate across the seas of the figments appurtenant to the creativity of their imagination, in search of problems, often foundational, maybe to solve them together with old questions of another sort, at the beginning apparently unrelated, or just to sow seeds from which new questions sprout, and subsequently further deep-seated problems flourish.
Another way to say this is that the visionaries, the dreamers, without hesitation embrace intuition alongside the rules of logic, because intuition is in itself an overflowing & creative faculty, which expands toward separate domains, and connects their motley components; to put it in the words of H. Poincaré [5]: c’est par la logique qu’on démontre, c’est par l’intuition qu’on invente. And before him, F. Enriques [6] had already observed that intuition is the core of Geometry, in the «arbitrariness of choice» of the fundamental objects inherent to the concept of space (vi è dell’arbitrio nella scelta degli enti fondamentali dello spazio), «as it springs from our mind [...], to wit, as it is presented to us by intuition», whilst the «proofs [...] are only logical explanations».
(3) I am a corrosive, mordacious, caustic spirit. If in mathematical physics there is percolation, with me there is perculation, when (per diem) I am bumping into dumb-ass people. (It is an Italianism: from percolazione to perculazione, okay?).
(3 bis) A short digression on everyday life. The Cantorian sentence also applies outside the hard sciences; it should be acquired by all the farcical job advertisements and recruitment agencies, as well as the risible curricular procedures, which require the unfortunate victim, the poor soul (aka the candidate), to have “problem-solving” skills and “results orientation” proficiency [7]. Behind this there is an hyper-specialization of labor, with the formation of blind-cocoons inside other blind-cocoons, as in a матрёшка-like encapsulation, sad result and rotten fruit of a rimbecillente education [8]; yes, there is the echo of G. Papini [9] or of G. Ceronetti [10] here. We live in a labor society where it is believed that “subcategories of categories of qualifications” are worth more than intelligence (the vast one) [11] or competences (the broad ones) [12], whereas, instead, these (sub)categories—in an abnormal proliferation of certifications—consist mainly in operations of cosmetics [13], to wit, of educational hypocrisy (from the Gr. ὑποκριτής, “actor”, “one who plays a part”, so “pretender”, “not genuine”).
The trouble of the current scholastic education, from high school to University, is that it has lost a sense of the παιδεία, which must return to being, mixedly, humanistic and scientific, that is, literally, an all-round education—I am thinking of the calque from the Gr. ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία (κύκλιος, “circular”), viz. at 360°. E. De Giorgi [14] used to say that, in «the search for good axiom systems for Mathematics and other sciences, must be undertaken with that spirit of humility, hope, conviviality which, after all, characterizes sapiential mentality» [15].
(4) Idiosyncrasy to the Institutions, when they are plagued by bureauidiocy, which is practically all the time; namely, hypersensitivity to a κρᾶσις between bureaucracy and idiocy. This is my verve battagliera, what in Greek could be called a δύναμις πολεμική. I can take up, in a defiantly lay manner, John’s phrase (8:23), and I read it in an atrociously and desperately earthly key, in a disgustingly socio‐political and economic dimension, and not in a Christian key, since I am hyperatheist [16]: «You are of this world, I am not of this world (ὑμεῖς ἐκ τούτου τοῦ κόσμου ἐστέ, ἐγὼ οὐκ εἰμὶ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου)». I live in the brutality of the most feral disillusionment. This means being against the Institutions of bureauidiocy. Communal life is a daily struggle against the idiot (but cazzàro sounds much better) ‘on duty’. B. Gracián [17] docet: «[C]on morir muchos de necios; pocos necios mueren (though many die like idiots, few are the idiots who die)».
(5) Nowadays one is required to be on social media; coercion of virtual sociality: Academia.edu, delusion of X-omnipotence (the late Twitter), Facebook, Google Scholar, Instagram et Threads, LinkedIn, ResearchGate, TikTok, YouTube, and other such stercora for brainwashing [18]. In the University sector, this captivating network has repercussions on all the distortions of the kooky delirium of bibliometrics, ou seja, author-level metrics, citation analysis, citation impact, h-index, IF (impact factor) or JIF (journal impact factor), rankings of academic publishers, scientometrics, webometrics. (The ORCID is an exception, useful for cataloging part of the scientific literature). Each of these bastard expedients is a measure of imbecility of those who adopt them and of those who, whether one likes it or not, use them along their work-path, in the name of a gloriola (small and miserable glory) [19] for the purposes of a risible careerism [20]. These expedients are the criterion of the destruction of creativity, isto é, the mechanization or robotization of the «ability, or willingness, to dream» (De Giorgi): creativity ends up squared off and pigeonholed in a wall of homogenization—we have therefore returned to Illich’s reflections previously mentioned in one of the footnotes.
(5 bis) What can a grizzly or a feral cat like me do? Well, I can boast of being the founder of doppiaMu (aye, μμ), a Creative Group, of which I am the sole member. Is this a burla, a celia, then [21]? Nope, sir. It is not real, but it is entirely ideal, so it is a very serious thing.
(6) Lupus in fabula. I make one final consideration which builds on what I have just denounced in point (5). This whole circus parade is closely connected with the complete failure of contemporary high-level scientific publishing, which is burdened by the industrial profit: a math or physics book is no longer a cultural heritage, of which it is necessary to evaluate what is written inside and how it is written, but it has been transformed into a commodity to be sold not too differently from how condoms or diapers are sold; into a commodity to be sold to Universities under the control of a review (the notorious peer review), which is, itself, strangled by this mercantilist constrictor mechanism. And what is the result? A production of the nth useless and even ugly book (libro boiàta), since it is “prefabricated” to remain closed in its narrow(-minded) specialism and silly sectorialism. This amounts to an unbridled multiplication of volumes [22] that are nothing but the aping of the nobility of science. Finis mediocris fabulæ: the astounding imaginativeness, innovativeness, and uniqueness go out the window.
[1] G. Cantor, De aequationibus secundi gradus indeterminatis (1867), in Id., Gesammelte Abhandlungen Math. und Phil. Inhalts. Mit erläuternden Anmerkungen sowie mit Ergänzungen aus dem Briefwechsel Cantor-Dedekind hrsg. von E. Zermelo, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg Gmbh, 1932, p. 31.
[2] A. Grothendieck, Les héritiers et le bâtisseur, 2.5, p. 27 otm, in Id., Récoltes et Semailles. Réflexions et témoignage sur un passé de mathématicien [Juin 1983-Avril 1986], online version: the number of pages refers to the page numbering of the manuscript (otm = of the manuscript).
[3] A. Einstein & L. Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, Cambridge Univ. Press, Bentley House, London, 1938, p. 95.
[4] Based on the recollection of C.N. Yang, in E. Fermi, Collected Papers (Note e Memorie), Vol. II: United States 1939-1954, a cura di E. Amaldi, H.L. Anderson, E. Persico, E. Segrè e A. Wattenberg, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei–The Univ. of Chicago Press, Roma, 1965, paper № 239, p. 674. The reference paper (239) is E. Fermi and C.N. Yang, Are Mesons Elementary Particles?, Phys. Rev., Vol. 76, № 12, 1949, pp. 739-743.
[5] H. Poincaré, Science et méthode (1908), liv. II, chap. II, Les définitions mathématiques et l’Enseignement, E. Flammarion, Paris, 1920, p. 137 (the source material of this chapter can be found in the article entitled Les définitions générales en mathématiques, in L’Enseignement des sciences mathématiques et des sciences physiques, par H. Poincaré, G. Lippmann, L. Poincaré, P. Langevin, É. Borel, F. Marotte, Imprimerie nationale, Paris, 1904, pp. 1-28, and subsequently also published in Enseign. Math., Tome VI, 1904, pp. 257-283).
[6] F. Enriques, Conferenze di Geometria tenute nella R. Univerisità di Bologna. Fondamenti di una Geometria iperspaziale, lithographed manuscript, Tip. Lit. L. Pongetti, Bologna, 1894-1895, pp. 2-3.
[7] Obviously, it all starts with a mala-education. Cf. I. Illich, Deschooling Society, Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, 1971, p. 41: «School sells curriculum—a bundle of goods made according to the same process and having the same structure as other merchandise»; ibid., p. 1: «The pupil is [...] “schooled” to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new»; p. 40: «School initiates young people into a world where everything can be measured, including their imaginations [...]. But personal growth is not a measurable entity [...]. School pretends to break learning up into subject “matters”, to build into the pupil a curriculum made of these prefabricated blocks, and to gauge the result on an international scale. People who submit to the standard of others for the measure of their own personal growth soon apply the same ruler to themselves. They no longer have to be put in their place, but put themselves into their assigned slots, squeeze themselves into the niche which they have been taught to seek, and, in the very process, put their fellows into their places, too, until everybody and everything fits. People who have been schooled down to size let unmeasured experience slip out of their hands».
[8] On the «forms of scholastic cretinism», see e.g. B. de Finetti, who defines certain written tests in mathematics, for awarding school-leaving certificates, «an abominable scorn and an indecent parodic mystification» of mathematics, «an insuperably pathological example of aberration intended to favor the systematic and total stultifying practice of young people», under the «rules that can be said to be burofreniche and giuridicole (synthesis of the two terms, coincident for 3/4, juridical and ridiculous)»; the first part of de Finetti’s sentence is taken from Come liberare l’Italia dal morbo della trinomite?, Mat. Cult. Soc. Riv. Unione Mat. Ital., Ser. I, Vol. VIII, № 3, 2015, pp. 293-297, quot. on pp. 293-294 (originally published in “Periodico di Matematiche”, Ser. IV, № 4, 1965, pp. 325-329), the second one is taken from Convegno della C.I.I.M. a Viareggio (24-25-26.X.1974), Mat. Cult. Soc. Riv. Unione Mat. Ital., Ser. I, Vol. VIII, № 3, 2015, pp. 425-430, quot. on p. 430 (originally published in “Notiziario della Unione Matematica Italiana”, № 12, 1974, pp. 31-36). To whom it may concern, a continuation of the discussion is in the following surveys, which have divergent opinions on some issues: C. Magris, La scuola: riso e libertà (1997), in Id., Utopia e disincanto. Storie e speranze, illusioni del moderno. Saggi 1974-1998, Garzanti, Milano, 1999, pp. 278-283; L. Russo, Segmenti e bastoncini. Dove sta andando la scuola?, Nuova edizione (riveduta e ampliata), Feltrinelli, Milano, 2000; E. Bellone, La scienza negata. Il caso italiano, Codice Edizioni, Torino, 2005; G. Israel, Chi sono i nemici della scienza? Riflessioni su un disastro educativo e culturale e un campionario di malascienza, 2013, revised and updated digital version, eBook Kindle (it is a pity that Israel, in 2008-2009, has made his expertise available to a bunch of political pricks); M. Vargas Llosa, È pensabile il mondo moderno senza il romanzo?, in C. Magris, M. Vargas Llosa, Mondo, romanzo, Einaudi, Torino, 2013; E. Zanelli, L'idea di università. Orizzonti storici, vicoli ciechi e ipotesi di rinnovamento, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2013; S. Pivato, Al limite della docenza. Piccola antropologia del professore universitario, Donzelli Editore, Roma, 2015; E. Galli della Loggia. L’aula vuota. Come l’Italia ha distrutto la sua scuola, Marsilio, Venezia, 2019; L. Boi, U. Curi, L. Maffei e L. Miraglia, In difesa dell’umano. Problemi e prospettive, Vol. I, Patmos · Vivarium Novum, Napoli, 2022, Introduzione, pp. ix-xxii.
[9] G. Papini, Chiudiamo le scuole!, in “Lacerba”, anno II, № 11, 1 giugno 1914, see § 5: «In schools [...] we have the immobility of the spirit obliged to repeat and not to seek—the disastrous effort to learn many useless things with imbecile methods—and the systematic drowning of every personality, originality and initiative in the black sea of uniform programs»; § 7: «School is so essentially anti-brilliant [antigeniale] that it not only makes pupils stupid [ristupidisce] but teachers, too. By dint of repeating the same things years after years, they become much more imbecile and non-malleable than they were at the beginning—which is no small feat».
[10] The matter of contention is long, and it is ludicrous and desperate at the same time. We must promptly repeat Ceronetti’s magmatic and corrosive prose, from Male di laurea, in G. Ceronetti, La carta è stanca. Una scelta, Adelphi, Milano (1976) 2000, pp. 143-150: «In Italian universities [...] graduates are like fake wine, produced in millions of hectoliters, to which the trafficker attaches certain labels: barbera, grignolino, barolo, freisa, valpolicella [...]. But does it make sense to still want a graduate son [...] in a country obstructed by academic degrees, gripped by the professional categories, destroyed by technicians [disfatto dai tecnici], led by students who has not completed university exams within set time period, incessantly raped by lawmen [incessantemente stuprato dagli uomini di legge]? [...] Do they know that having a University is worse than hosting a steel mill, a petrochemical complex, a drug pipeline? University is the seed of the underworld, of bungling and brutality of the mind, of hunger for wind [...]. The product of all this is a sick man, a generally aggressive and vapid guy, astonished at finding himself unemployed and insignificant [Il prodotto di tutto questo è un malato, un tipo generalmente aggressivo e melenso, stupìto di ritrovarsi disoccupato e insignificante] [...]. Everyone wants an academic degree for their children, the pan-scientific gridlock, the Faustian eruption, the crucible of the Intellectual, the increase of the land where the University will sparkle; the superhuman academic Luna Park, the pouring of technical jargons into an authentic language, the cultural power, door of Power [...]. [So] the maniacs of the possession of an illusion of power will be offered instead, already well dry-aged and ready, to the bloodless lobotomies of the effective power, insatiable in enslaving them, [a] secret [power], more and more sad and more foul [i maniaci del possesso di un’illusione di potere che li offrirà invece, già bene frolliti e pronti, alle lobotomie incruente del potere effettivo, insaziabile nell’asservirli, segreto, sempre più triste e più turpe] [...]. Study alone [...]. Beware of classrooms, of elbows, of a mouth in front [of you], of a printed volume, of a mimeographed sheet, of a common canteen [...], of a ballot paper, of a newspaper».
[11] As someone said gravely, «Not everyone is condemned to be intelligent» (that someone was C.E. Gadda). But, with a sharply mordacious tone, we could push that further, in adhering to the enunciation of Cipolla’s laws. Stupid individuals spin the carousel (the others stand by and watch), either because of their «genetic traits» («exceptional doses of the gene of stupidity» variegately scattered around the world) or because of their «position of power and consequence which [they] occup[y] in society». Stupid people show «a strong proclivity toward perfect consistency in all field of human endeavours», except that they, in total blindness, «perseveringly insist in causing harm and losses to other people without deriving any gain», for which they are protected by an unconscious stubbornness aimed at impoverishing the society as a whole. See C.M. Cipolla, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, The Mad Millers, Bologna, printed by Grafiche Galeati, Imola, 1976, chapp. II, V-VI.
[12] Instead of judging a person’s intelligence, competence, & ability, or rather, his/her “genius”, the academic certificate (titolo di studio) is considered, which gives access to the so-called “competition class” (classe di concorso), i.e. a “category open to recruitment”, for professorships and teaching posts, according to the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR). Put otherwise, the academic certificate, combined with the competition class, constitute the requirement useful for having a “teaching qualification” (abilitazione all’insegnamento). Such a recruitment strategy is not wrong in itself; but, if it is taken too rigidly, and this is what actually happens, it leads to the creation of an army of brainless zombie-teachers, each one of them locked up in a non-beneficial and minute fragmentation of competition classes. This discourse belongs to secondary schools, but something similar can be repeated for the University, where a blind and moronic sectorization reigns. Our past should make us ashamed of present miseries. Does anyone remember F. Rasetti, one of the via Panisperna boys? After winning a competition for the chair of experimental physics (at the University of Catania), he started giving lessons in spectroscopy (at the University of Rome), but then quietly became a professor of geology, paleontology, entomology, and botany (at Johns Hopkins University).
[13] The operations of cosmetics are coupled with the sapiential degeneration. Degenerata re publica plurimæ certificationes. The neoplasm of certifications does not add but takes away value from a given value; so that, as an effect, everything is valueless; cf. L. Einaudi, Libertà della scuola e vanità dei titoli, in “Corriere della Sera”, 11 maggio 1947, who speaks of «teachers busy sticking the maximum number of [...] notions and not ideas into the heads of the pupils; mnemonic attachments and not excitations to scientific curiosity and to the moral formation of the individual. I lived for almost half a century in the school; and I have learned that those scraps of paper called “university degree”, “certificates of license” are worth less than the paper they are written on [quei pezzi di carta che si chiamano diplomi di laurea, certificati di licenza valgono meno della carta su cui sono scritti]». Who would be insane enough to confuse intelligence with a string of certificates (pseudo-education)? And yet this is how the community of mankind works. Which brings us back to the footnote [11].
Such a reproach has distant origins:
· G. Peano, Contro gli esami, in Id., Opere scelte, Vol. III: Geometria e fondamenti - Meccanica razionale - Varie, Prefazione di U. Cassina, a cura dell’Unione Matematica Italiana, Edizioni Cremonese, Roma, 1959, pp. 383-384, originally published in “Torino Nuova”, 17 agosto, 1912, p. 2: «The exams that are taken in our schools are often useless, and not infrequently harmful. The government and public authorities in general must give all kinds of education [...]. The more one learns, the more power one has [*]. But the attestation that the government gives with official exams, and in which the whole Italian public believes, has very little value [...]. It is a true crime against humanity to pester [tormentare] poor pupils with exams, to make sure they know things that are ignored by the generality of an educated public. So in high schools, and in the University [...]. The work that is done in the last few days to prepare for exams yields no scientific profit [dà nessun profitto scientifico], and ruins the health of many students, young and old».
[*] Beware, however, of the Goethean subtlety: «One knows only when one knows little; with knowledge, doubt increases (Eigentlich weiß man nur, wenn man wenig weiß. Mit dem Wissen wächst der Zweifel)». Goethe’s aphorism is from Maximen und Reflexionen, Aus Über Kunst und Altertum, aus des fünften Bandes drittem Heft. 1826, 281, in Goethes Werke: Festausgabe, Bd. 14, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig, 1826.
· G. Papini, op. cit., § 3: «[The school] does not invent knowledge but prides itself on transmitting it [...]. [Moreover], it transmits badly [knowledge] or, most of the time, by transmitting it prevents the formation of other, new and better, knowledge, by drying up and distorting the receiving brains»; § 6: «School [...] teaches many useless things, which then have to be unlearned in order to learn many other [things] for yourself [...]. It teaches badly because it teaches everyone the same things in the same way and in the same quantity without taking into account the infinite diversity of talent [...], needs, etc. You cannot teach more than one. You do not learn something from others except in two-way conversations, where the one who teaches adapts to the nature of the other, re-explains, exemplifies, asks, discusses and does not dictate his word from on high».
· F. Enriques, Le matematiche nella storia e nella cultura, Lezioni pubblicate per cura di A. Frajese, Prefazione di L. Lombardo Radice, N. Zanichelli, Bologna, 1982, ristampa anastatica dell’edizione 1938, § 53, p. 184: «Here the question usually arises as to whether teaching should have an educational or informative purpose. But the dilemma is misplaced. If with informative teaching one intends to provide the student with a series of notions to be passively accepted as a gift, this has no reason to exist in any order of schools, because the gift of an extrinsic thing does not enrich the poor who ignores its use: the master gives himself only when he excites and moves [trascina e commuove] and communicates something of his own life to his spiritual son».
[14] E. De Giorgi, Overcoming set-theoretic reductionism in search of wider and deeper mutual understanding between Mathematicians and scholars of different scientific and human disciplines (e.a.), in Id., Selected Papers, Published with the support of Unione Matematica Italiana and Scuola Normale Superiore, Edited by L. Ambrosio, G. Dal Maso, M. Forti, M. Miranda, S. Spagnolo, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2006, p. 875; originally published in It. under the title Dal superamento del riduzionismo insiemistico alla ricerca di una più ampia e profonda comprensione tra matematici e altri studiosi di altre discipline scientifiche ed umanistiche, Atti Accad. Naz. Lincei, Rend. Cl. Sci. fis. mat. e natur., Ser. 9, Vol. 9, 1998, Fasc. № 2, p. 79.
[15] Wherefore I joined the Accademia Vivarium Novum project, as a member of the Collegio Docenti (lectiones & conferences), “Center for studies and research on nature, humanity and the unity of thought” (Villa Falconieri and Villa Mondragone, Frascati, Roma): Agreement-convention-project promoted by the Vivarium Novum Academy and the World Campus of Humanist Studies with the Universities of Bergamo, Cagliari, Fribourg, Macerata, Padova, Palermo, Pavia, Pisa, Roma Tre, “La Sapienza”, Tor Vergata.
[16] The simple thought that almost all the religious faith traditions are doltishly anthropomorphic, is cause of nausea and vomiting. I am referring to those doctrines (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and afferent sectarianisms) in which, with a terrifying ὕβρις—arrogance, presumption, self-importance, and so on—the imago Dei is forged on the imago hominis. Although they believe they can screw with us by telling us the opposite. The only acceptable religion is that which binds (from La. religāre, precisely) the feelings of one’s heart; any other altar is a lie (social constructionism).
[17] B. Gracián, Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia (1647), Sacada de los Aforismos que se discurren en las obras de L. Gracián. Publícala Don V.J. de Lastanosa. Y la dedica al Excelentíssimo Señor Don L. Méndez de Haro, I. Blaev, Amsterdam, MDCLIX (1659), p. 144.
[18] One may object that any social network—not unlike every other “technology”—is like a knife, videlicet, a neutral tool. In the hands of a surgeon, it saves lives, in the hands of a deranged person, it destroys lives. But is it really like that? No, the truth is that technology is not good or bad according to how it is used (by each individual). There is no such thing as a neutral technology. Every technological progress brings with it a germ of involution. As someone said, the invention of the automobile is (also) the invention of the road accident, together with the possibility of death, as a consequence.
[19] It is a Pascolian term, see G. Pascoli, Miei Pensieri di varia Umanità, V. Muglia, Messina, 1903 (Catania - Stab. tip. a vap. Cav. S. Di Mattei & C.), Il Fanciullino, pp. 1-66.
[20] See R. Adler, J. Ewing, P. Taylor, Citation Statistics. A report from the International Mathematical Union (IMU) in cooperation with the International Council of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), Corrected version, 6, December, 2008, pp. 1-26; A. Molinié and G. Bodenhausen, Bibliometrics as Weapons of Mass Citation · La bibliométrie comme arme de citation massive, Chimia, Vol. 64, No 1/2, 2010, pp. 78-89; R.R. Ernst, The Follies of Citation Indices and Academic Ranking Lists: A Brief Commentary to ‘Bibliometrics as Weapons of Mass Citation’, Chimia, Vol. 64, № 1/2, 2010, p. 90; D.N. Arnold and K.K. Fowler, Nefarious Numbers, Notices Amer. Math. Soc., Vol. 58, № 3, 2011, pp. 434-437.
[21] “Burla” and “celia" are two wonderful Italian words, which stand for “prank”, “jest”.
[22] Here are some book series: Applied and Numerical Harmonic Analysis, Applied Mathematical Sciences, Compact Textbooks in Mathematics, Computational Music Science, Handbook of Mathematical..., Mathematical Engineering, Mathematics and Its Applications, Mathematics in Industry, Mathematics for Industry, Mathematics for Physicists and Engineers, Mathematics Studies, Mathematics Textbooks for Science and Engineering, Mathematics: Theory & Applications, Monographs in..., Graduate Studies in Mathematics, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, Pure and Applied Mathematics Series, Series in Contemporary Mathematics, Student Mathematical Library, Texts and Monographs in Physics, Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, Undergraduate Mathematics, Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics, UNITEXT – La Matematica per il 3+2, Universitext, X Briefs in Mathematics, X Mathematical Society Student Texts, X Studies in Advanced Mathematics, X Textbooks in Mathematics, X Tracts in Mathematics, and so forth.