https://ludohirst.me/tags/not-maths/Recent content in Not Maths on maths blogHugoen-gbWed, 26 Aug 2026 10:32:55 +0100https://ludohirst.me/blog/early_biography/Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:32:55 +0100https://ludohirst.me/blog/early_biography/<p>People seem to think that to find the truth of a person&rsquo;s character you must look first at that person&rsquo;s childhood: as it is in childhood that people are made what they will become.</p> <p>The truest biography then must be like that of Augustine who started his Confessions with his birth and first infancy&ndash; telling how he would suck on the teat that was offered to him:</p> <blockquote> <p>Thus there received me the comforts of woman&rsquo;s milk. For neither my mother nor my nurses stored their own breasts for me; but Thou didst bestow the food of my infancy through them, according to Thine ordinance, whereby Thou distributest Thy riches through the hidden springs of all things. Thou also gavest me to desire no more than Thou gavest; and to my nurses willingly to give me what Thou gavest them. For they, with a heaven-taught affection, willingly gave me what they abounded with from Thee. For this my good from them, was good for them. Nor, indeed, from them was it, but through them; for from Thee, O God, are all good things, and from my God is all my health. This I since learned, Thou, through these Thy gifts, within me and without, proclaiming Thyself unto me. For then I knew but to suck; to repose in what pleased, and cry at what offended my flesh; nothing more.</p> </blockquote>