So, it is said that the skilled hand of Philippe Grandjean, who spent half a century honing Romain du Roi, has altered and arguably improved its now only partially grid-determined shape. Type cutters already knew what Science and Technology Studies scholars have since established: that carving out scientifically precise inscriptions requires situated work, which is why letter-shapes are not easily captured solely by the material-semiotic net of a grid. Knowing this does not require a critical analyst. The committee announced publicly that ‘experience has shown us that it is in the harmony of parts that an agreeable letter consists, and that often enough it depends on an indefinable quality... that can be felt rather than defined’. The letter grid remains vibrant, involving different modes of knowing, some of which defy definition. This is what secures the place of the ‘B’ on the cover as a proto-baroque object, in the sense of this book.

YoshuaBengio,forexample,hasmadeanumberofsophisticatedsuggestionsforsignificantlybroadeningthetoolkitofdeeplearning,includingdevelopingtechniquesforstatisticallyextractingcausalrelationshipsthroughasensitivitytodistributionalchanges(Bengioetal.,2019)andtechniquesforautomaticallyextractingmodularstructure(Goyaletal.,2019),bothofwhichIamquitesympatheticto.

much as geometry stands to a real objectin our terrestrial space. There was a time when “geometry” meantsuch relationships as could be demonstrated on three-dimensionalobjects or in two-dimensional diagrams. The forms provided bythe earth—animal, vegetable, and mineral—were larger in numberand richer in properties than could be provided by elementarygeometry. In those days a form which was suggested by geometrybut which could not be demonstrated in ordinary space was suspector inacceptable. Ordinary space dominated geometry.