There\u2019s the magic of a proof \u2014 the emotion you feel when you understand it, when you realize how strong it is and how strong it makes you. As a child, I could already see this. And I enjoyed the concentration that mathematics requires. It\u2019s something that, getting older, I find more and more central to the practice of mathematics. The rest of the world disappears. Your whole brain exists to study a problem. It\u2019s an extraordinary experience, one that\u2019s very important to me \u2014 to make yourself leave the world of practical things, to inhabit a different world. Maybe this is why my son enjoys playing video games so much.<\/p>\n

But what made me a latecomer to mathematics, in some sense, is that I am absolutely not interested in games. It\u2019s not for me. And in high school, mathematics felt like a game. It was hard for me to take it seriously. I didn\u2019t see the depths of mathematics at first. Even when I started to discover very interesting proofs and theorems after high school, at no point did I think that I could invent something myself, that I could make it mine.<\/p>\n

I had a need for something deeper, more serious, something that I could make mine.<\/p>\n