Explaining Boris Pasternak's Observation that Complex Ideas Are Sometimes Easier to Understand

Authors

Olga Kosheleva, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

11-2015

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-15-83

Published in Journal of Innovative Technology and Education, 2016, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 9-12.

Abstract

Probably the most cited lines from the poetry of the Nobel-prize winning Russian writer Boris Pasternak contain the observation that complex ideas are sometimes easier to understand than simpler ones. This is not just a paradoxical poetic statement: many teachers have observed the same seemingly counter-intuitive phenomenon. In this paper, we provide a possible explanation for this phenomenon, by showing that indeed, many easier-to-describe mathematical models lead to more-difficult-to-solve mathematical problems.