Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 430.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org


    [1]    From: David Nash <david.nash@anu.edu.au>
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.428: new horizons for the humanities? (8)

    [2]    From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.429: apology to all topologists (54)

    [3]    From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.429: apology to all topologists . . . correction! . . . (14)


--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2026-04-22 10:56:09+00:00
        From: David Nash <david.nash@anu.edu.au>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.428: new horizons for the humanities?

Of some relevance is this blog post last month from another Fields Medalist
https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/03/29/mathematical-methods-and-human-thought-in-the-age-of-ai/
I haven't read the linked preprint; the post including the Comments
ranges wider than mathematics (a field rich in rigorous creativity).

David Nash
http://www0.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/


--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2026-04-22 09:36:54+00:00
        From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.429: apology to all topologists

Dear Willard,

Still, what would the Typologist say if they did visit
Hacking, and did tell us what computation has done for them?

Having done some Font Designing using Knuth's MetaPost
programming language, I'd say computation, particularly as
packaged up and delivered by MetaPost, and other good quality
font design tools, has done wonders for Typologists.  Steve
Jobs had quite a big hand in all this too, by insisting that
as screen resolution increased, so too should the quality of
the screen fonts used, for the benefit of the Mac users.
Knuth's TeX and Lamport's LaTeX added the needed computations
to do good quality typographical design of documents and text
setting.  [Microsoft still doesn't do this.]

This may not be the epistemological change you ask for, but it
is, I would say, one of the most important changes computation
has made to the Humanities, and everybody else too, including
Topologists.

-- Tim

PS: Generative AI systems today are utterly useless at real
typographical design.  That's 'cos they don't and can't read
text.  And because they don't really know and understand
anything; they are just made to look like they do.



> On 22 Apr 2026, at 10:44, Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
>
>
>              Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 429.
>        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
>                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
>                       www.dhhumanist.org
>                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
>        Date: 2026-04-22 08:38:31+00:00
>        From:  <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
>        Subject: apology to all topologists
>
> One of us pointed out to me that my note on changes in mathematical
> practices had substituted 'typologist' for the 'topologist' who visited
> Hacking. I blamed the pesky spelling 'corrector' in the e-mail program
> I'm using. But then, realising how primed I am by habit to type former
> rather than the latter term, I experimented and thus exonerated the
> software. Mea culpa!
> WM


--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2026-04-22 10:26:28+00:00
        From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.429: apology to all topologists . . . correction! . . .

Dear Willard,

Correction!  That should have been Knuth's MetaFont
programming language, not MetaPost.  MetaPost was a version of
MetaFont originally built by John D Hobby, which, as it's
name suggests, generated Postscript output.

After using MetaFont I used MetaPost a lot, and this name is
still in my typing fingers more than MetaFpnt, it seems.  (And
I don't seem to be able to read my text well enough to catch
this.)

-- Tim



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