pg.+24-26

__Conversant__: having a frequent or familiar association

“Is the difference between G.H Hardy, on the one hand, and dumb Ramanujan and the dumb Red Sally, on the other, merely that the former is conversant with the protocols of academic mathematics while the latter are not.” (24)

In this context, Elizabeth Costello is debating the notion that G.H Hardy is closer to God than Ramanujan and Red Sally because he is conversant (has an association) with academics. Ramanujan was self-taught and did not provide evidence to prove his results, and Red Sally, a monkey, obviously had no way of expressing her thoughts.

__Protoco__l: a code prescribing strict adherence to correct etiquette and precedence.

“Is the difference between G.H Hardy, on the one hand, and dumb Ramanujan and the dumb Red Sally, on the other, merely that the former is conversant with the protocols of academic mathematics while the latter are not.” (24)

Again, Costello discusses the notion that G.H Hardy is closer to God than Ramanujan and Red Sally due to his association with the protocols (accepted ways/methods) of mathematics. Is the only difference between Hardy and Ramanujan/Red Sally his knowledge and application of mathematics?

__Cadre__: **1**. a nucleus or core group especially of trained personnel able to assume control and to train others **2.** a group of people having some unifying relationship.

“How is it that humankind throws up, generation after generation, a cadre of thinkers slightly further from God than Ramanujan…” (24).

In this extract from pg. 24, Costello utilizes the term “cadre” to stand for a group of unified, qualified thinkers.

__Tertiary:__ **1. ** of third rank, importance, or value **2. **// chiefly British // **: ** of, relating to, or being higher education.

“…after the twelve years of schooling and six of tertiary education, of making a contribution to the decoding of the great book of nature via the physical and mathematical disciplines?” (24).

In this passage, Costello is referring to the years of education after high school i.e. University, college. She is asking how each generation produces groups of people further from God than Ramanujan yet equally respected thinkers who have had years of supplementary education, and who are equally as capable of discovering the mysteries of the world through mathematical means.

__Discourse:__ verbal interchange of ideas.

“Yet, although I see that the best way to win acceptance from this learned gathering would be for me to join myself, like a tributary stream running into a great river, to the great Western discourse of man versus beast, of reason versus unreason, something in me resists, foreseeing in that step the concession of the entire battle.” (25).

When Costello refers to “the great Western discourse of man versus beast”, she is alluding to the Western belief, or common exchange of ideas, that suggest that we as humans are superior to animals.

__Tautology:__ needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word.

“For, seen from the outside, from a being who is alien to it, reason is simply a vast tautology .” (25).

In this statement, Costello articulates that from her point of view as a person who refuses to believe that humans are superior to animals (reason vs. unreason), reason to her appears to be merely a mindless repetition of an idea that most Westerners naturally believe.

__Lion-Bull reference__

“In the olden days the voice of man, raised in reason, was confronted by the roar of the lion, the bellow of the bull. Man went to war with the lion and the bull, and after many generations won that war definitively. Today these creatures have no more power. Animals have only their silence left with which to confront us.” (25).

In this excerpt, Costello talks of how times have changed and how reason has evolved. Years ago man believed that he was equal to the lion and the bull (animals) and therefore fought against them as though they were alike. Now humans consider themselves superior to animals, and no longer give them the chance to fight back, thus the only defense animals have left is their silence.

__Hominoidea:__ any of a superfamily of primates including recent hominids, gibbons, and pongids together with extinct ancestral and related forms (as of the genera //Proconsul// and //Dryopithecus//).

“Yet because the great apes, or some of them, seem to us to be on the point of giving up their silence, we hear human voices raised arguing that the great apes should be incorporated into a greater family of the Hominoidea, as creatures who share with man the faculty of reason”. (26).

Costello talks of the belief that because the great apes are the closest species to humans in terms of intellect, they should be classified under a superfamily of primates, which, similar to humans, have the capability of reason and are more civilized than a majority of other animals.