This book is a gift, to computing, of the field of mathematics.
This is not our gift to give.
But it's a gift that's been given.
All that remains is for the members of both fields to see.
Whether that happens with the living members in this generation, or whether it'll take a generation remains to be seen.
But computing has a responsibility far greater than Chess or the World Wide Web or the Ancient Board Game of Go, coming up, soon ahead, in the near future.
Something it will soon be responsible for. Something that's far greater than anything it ever asked to be put in charge of.
For the past century, computing has been the foundations of mathematics.
This didn't matter much, because no one in computing believed it.
And the ones who did didn't matter, because no one in mathematics did.
This moment in history is different.
Within living memory, mathematics will begin to see that computing is its foundations.
And computing needs to prepare.
Because computing as a field may be the new foundations.
But it's new, and it's naive.
And computing as a field has no idea how large, how terrifying, how brilliant, how dysfunctional, and how adaptable mathematics is.
This book is a gift, to computing, of the field of mathematics.
Whether or not computing listens, it will be the new foundations.
If computing listens, it will have some idea of what's coming next.