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As an extreme example about what people believe based on authority arguments, consider the case of a deep mathematician (Dan Barbilian) who was also a great hermetic poet (pen name Ion Barbu). I used Google Translate :) (and some pondering) to turn one of his most famous poems into English.

The literary authority claims that the poem is about the poetic art, while a mathematician would think it is about a Fourier transform (noncommutative, see the "groups of water", SL(2)?).

Here is the translation of the poem Ion Barbu, Din ceas dedus:

From the clock, down the depth of this calm peak,

Passed through the mirror into blessed azure,

Tailoring on the crushing of the aggressive herds

In groups of water a second, purer game.

Latent nadir! The poet raises the sum

Of spreading harps lost into reversed flight.

The song exhausts: as deep as the sea bears

Its jellies, from under the green bells.




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