A comment in a paper

I was reading a paper on topological field theory and mirror symmetry. I thought I was good at QFT, but the paper crushed my confidence. It was hard; harder than I thought. I was amazed by the writer’s style of presenting things. He was particularly good at presenting advanced mathematical ideas/tools in a clear way. When I was almost through his paper, I read a sentence that quickly made this paper my favorite one:

I do not know how to do this [construct a mirror map], but will make a few comments.

Come on, how many authors are brave enough to say that they do not know how to work out the details of the paper?

~ by hwasungmars on January 20, 2008.