From perusing MathOverflow, I’ve gotten the impression that functional analysis and combinatorics are somehow related. I am currently an avid fan of combinatorics, but have yet to study functional analysis, and to my current knowledge don’t see why this would be the case.
Originally, I saw a comment saying that the two subjects were connected, and just thought it was a silly joke. However, looking into it, I’ve noticed that are a least a few big mathematicians who have focused on both of these fields. Namely, I am aware that both Timothy Gowers and Gian-Carlo Rota began with functional analysis, and transitioned to combinatorics. Is this simply coincidence, or is there some natural relation between these two particular fields?