Today is my friend Familiar's birthday. He's a remarkable person who's been pouring his heart into writing this new book about a thing unironically called “zero knowledge”. Since today is his special day, I was hoping we could all take a moment to make him feel celebrated. Last year, most of his friends did not do much to make him feel special: his only birthday gifts were a pillow from Teddy and a chance to hang out with Qubit. He’s not friends with any of those other “friends” anymore, thankfully.

In a bold move, he’s decided to declare that he’s writing THE book on the subject of “zero knowledge” (aka “ZK”), even though he’s barely started the book. To his credit, the intro gives an impressively good explanation of what ZK is and why it matters. You may have seen some of my attempts to explain it on here previously; please just forget those, his is so much better.

He’s embarking on an ambitious mission to fill a critical gap in an important industry. Everyone in the field agrees there’s a lack of good resources and that getting up to speed is hard, but no one is doing much to fix that.

Our friend Familiar recently had the idea of signing up to be the guy to fix it, and so here we are.

His plan is to create a (paid) community of learners around the book he’s writing, as he writes it. This way, he gets constant and quick feedback. The hope is that by intentional incorporation of feedback, we’ll make a resource that really does click for everyone.

Although the subject is "advanced" math subject, he insists the content isn't actually that difficult; people’s math aversion is the consequence of terrible math teaching, not math itself. In other words, nobody is drawing nearly enough (helpful) pretty pictures, and Familiar plans to fix that. He also plans to teach concepts like "groups" and "coloring" (mathematical terms relevant for ZK with meanings quite different from their everyday use) to prove that this material is truly accessible.

In fact, he says that if we spent more time talking about coloring than formulas in math class, our society’s logical reasoning would be much better. He says that standardized tests have created an environment where people are trained to aim for “right” answers instead of aiming for understanding. What’s worse is that when they are expected to demonstrate understanding, they’re told the expected “understanding”…

He told me that when he was in school, he used a method of learning called FAFO which allowed him to rely purely on understanding and logic in math class. He liked math because he didn’t have to memorize anything; he could always just figure things out on the fly. (Any guesses how he felt about biology?) I asked him where he learned the FAFO method from, he said he wasn’t sure but definitely not his parents.

His unique perspective on math and his ability to break down complex concepts give me confidence that he’ll create a thriving community of learners and an incredible book.

So, here is my ask to you: open up the book and give it a shot. And if you learn something, please report back here; I’ll make sure he sees your comment. And if you didn’t learn anything, I bet he’d like to know that, too.

Also, heads up, he’s a total perfectionist and has some serious avoidance issues (which is why you’ve maybe never heard of him before even though he is really awesome). He’s adopting a new strategy to help push through the perfectionism: work in public, and share things well before they’re done.

So, here’s my book: unpolished, incomplete, scattered, and on the path of changing how we think about math.

https://thebookofzk.notion.site/

(FYI, today also happens to be my birthday, but I would much rather talk about Familiar. He is far more comfortable with the attention than I am, and I no longer have a Monkey around Familiar House to help deflect attention away from me.)

This post is dedicated to my parents, Rakesh and Radha, who have shown me unconditional love my whole life, which I now see as a key element in me having the space to FAFO as I discovered myself over the past few years.