[Noumenon72]

I was going to ask if the math articles from Quanta magazine are a "Matt Levine" situation where only one person can write so well, but I see only six articles by this author there, so maybe it's an editor doing the magic. All I know is this makes math so accessible and that's not easy.

[vessenes]

I too love Quanta. It's funded by an extremely wealthy math guy as a public service; they have the luxury of affording excellent journalists who all seem to me to have graduate degrees in the area they cover, but have not lost the power of communication in exchange. Just a very nice gift to the world.

[fsckboy]

> It's funded

he died in 2024, did he make arrangements to keep funding it or endow it?

[vessenes]

Renaissance was characterized by, not least, it's fucking fantastic perspicacity and foresight. I'm sure if he wanted it to continue then it will. And I'd take the lack of fundraising banners on the site to be good news. A number of years ago I reached out and offered to add some funding for a paper magazine, and they were like "we're good bro, thanks" -- that's when I looked up who was actually financing it, and I was like "...yep, makes sense". Still wish they had a paper magazine, though. I wanted something to leave around for my then-teenagers to read.

[neom]

I was curious about the rich math guy so I looked it up, leaving this here for the next curious person: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons :)

[DFHippie]

> Simons shunned the limelight and rarely gave interviews, citing Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm for explanation: "'God gave me a tail to keep off the flies. But I'd rather have had no tail and no flies.' That's kind of the way I feel about publicity."

I'm glad to read about billionaires with non-poisonous personalities. I'd prefer a world where no individual held such relative power, but next best is a world in which the dreadful oligarchs have foils to balance them out slightly.