Jan 29 2026 2pm-3pm CET / 9pm-10pm SGT. David Bessis joins Commoncog members to talk about building intuition, training expertise, and the true nature of mathematics.
I’m pleased to announce a special Commoncog members-only live Q&A with David Bessis, the author of Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity.
(Heads up: this call is about expertise. It's only tangentially related to business.)
Background
Mathematica is a very interesting book. It is ostensibly about skill in mathematics: which, contrary to popular opinion, isn't about the symbolic problem solving that we all learn in school. What professional mathematicians actually do is to create conceptual shapes in their heads — so-called mathematical objects — and then build intuitions around them that they can later prove rigorously on paper. The written representation is actually secondary to the mental objects. When framed in this manner, mathematics is really a game that mathematicians play with such objects: manipulating them, connecting them to other objects; attempting to prove new things about them.
The reason we've invited Bessis to talk to Commoncog members, though, is because he argues that the practice of mathematics teaches you a very important life skill: building expertise by building better intuitions.
If you want a quick taste of how he thinks about this, Bessis recently wrote a short piece on training intuition here: Thinking Fast, Slow, and Super Slow.
Bessis seems to have come to a similar conclusion about expertise in mathematics that we've arrived at in business: the way expertise works is to train our intuition so it becomes more accurate over time. (This is the 'thinking super slow' mode that he talks about above). He's kindly agreed to come talk to Commoncog members — and you're free to ask him about anything related to the above topics.
Commoncog member Sam Taylor will be hosting the conversation (instead of me).
If you'd like a taste, the book was the subject of a great thread in the forum here: System 3: Improving Intuition in Mathematics and Business. That thread links to a wonderful podcast interview that Bessis did with economist Russ Roberts, which I recommend you listen to if you don't have time to read the book!
David has kindly agreed to join us live. He lives in Paris, though, so we have to cater to his schedule.
Details:
- Thursday, 29 January 2026, 14:00 – 15:00 Paris Time (timezone visualisation here).
- London Time: 29 January 2026, 13:00-14:00
- New York Time: 29 January 2026, 08:00-09:00
- Singapore Time: 29 January 2026, 21:00-22:00
- San Francisco Time: 29 January 2026, 05:00-06:00
- Sydney Time: 30 January 2026, 00:00-1:00
- Meeting agenda: Sam will open with two questions, and then cede the floor to David and play host/moderator.
- Note: we’ll start on time, and we’ll open the meeting 15 minutes before. So feel free to come in and hang out before we begin.
- The interview is members-only, and will be recorded so you can watch it even if you can’t make it. I’d like to request that you keep the recording private to members only.
Originally published , last updated .
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