Bobby Fischer Against The World (2011)

I could never play chess. Not well, at least.

I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight when my cousin taught me how to play. It was on one of those interminable summer afternoons at my grandparent’s house. He explained to me how all the pieces moved, how players took turns to move just one piece at a time, how white always moved first, and so on. Only a handful of moves into my first game he castled. Naturally, I protested. “You can only move one piece at a time. That’s what you just said.” He explained that castling was a legal move and that he’d only forgotten to mention it. That’s when I gave up. Years later, on vacation with some friends in a small town outside São Paulo, in summer afternoons much shorter than they used to be, I lost game after game while the house cat watched on, I imagine in disapproval.

When mathematicians and physicists discuss their work in public, ordinary language often fails in much the same way that it fails chess grandmasters. Words seems unable to wrap their arms around the beauty of celebrated games and strategems.