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The World of Mathematics, Vol. 2 (Volume 2)
Vol. 2 of a monumental 4-volume set covers mathematics and the physical world, mathematics and social science, and the laws of chance, with non-technical essays by and about scores of eminent mathematicians, economists, scientists, and others. Individual articles by Galileo Galilei, Gregor Mendel, Thomas Robert Malthus, and many more. Includes numerous figures.
720 pages, Paperback
First published September 18, 2000
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About the author
James Roy Newman
25 books19 followersJames Roy Newman was an American mathematician & mathematical historian. He was also a lawyer, practicing in NY state from 1929 to 1941. During & after WWII, he held several positions in the US government, including Chief Intelligence Officer at the US Embassy in London, Special Assistant to the Undersecretary of War & Counsel to the US Senate Committee on Atomic Energy. In the latter capacity, he helped to draft the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. He became a member of the board of editors for Scientific American beginning in '48. He's also credited for coining & first describing the mathematical concept "googol" in his book (co-authored by Edward Kasner) Mathematics & The Imagination.
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December 18, 2019
Sometimes, when walking around near my home, I remember the mathematician protagonist from the Aronofsky movie, Pi, scurrying around his city neighborhood in a state of delirium. The camera work showed us the malaise of his internal state as he moved further away from an accurate picture of the world. Amid his quiet ramblings the following lines were spoken:
"One: Mathematics is the language of nature. Two: Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. Three: If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature"
These ideas, even if spoken by a fictional character- that we can describe as an eligible psychiatric patient - need not be seen as any bit symptomatic of madness, rather similar thoughts have been parroted across history..... as a few examples:
1. late presocratic cult leader Pythagorus used to speak a famous ambiguous credo 'all is number'
2. Galileo Galilei phrased it slightly differently from the madman when he said "Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.".
3. or when Hawking spoke about a single unified theory by asking : "What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?"
But of course these are three people chosen at random. There are thousands of examples of brilliant people speaking of math as a central component to the world. But we may come to say:
Um what. As we look at the triangles, circles, squares and distant symbols from high school math, but that would be a mistake. The belief here is centrally that as crazy as life may seem, as much as certain things come as curve balls and surprises in this world that if we were to peer deeply at nature's nature, we would find it in fact has a nature. A predictability, a structure a fashion and possibly, to invoke Feynman's commentary, a very consistent ability to follow its own laws. Without any failure.
The history of science can be seen as the subtle discovery of the mathematical traits, or the quantifiable and geometric discoveries by human beings. From newton discovering the clockwork of where a cannon ball would land in his mechanics, to Mendel predicting the probability of traits that may appear in the next generation of peas - these numbers are near omnipresent. we are brought to question in these reflections:
If knew how to map all of the nature the with the proper math, so this idea goes, then maybe we can understand everything. Perhaps we can become gods? Perhaps that silly show rick and morty, in whee a scientist is nearly omnipotent from his understanding of nature is a possible ending point for humanity.
Who knows.
But if you are interested in these sorts of questions. That being, how mathematical in fact is nature. Newman's compilations is a great place to go for information. He is, the editor, not the writer here. There is no single writer as it is a collection of essays from across the mathematical sciences. Some are highly speculative - such as the one writer that presented an argument that war can be predicted algorithmically, or those more innovative like those attempting to apply math to genetics.
In short, while the first volume of Newman's collection presented a great deal of foundational papers on mathematics - presenting the reader with an introduction to the philosophy of math, this by contrast, introduces the reader to the power of math to explain the world around us.
It is very worthwhile for those interested.
Recommended for :
-Mathematical scientists
- scientists interested in how math can be applied
- mathematicians looking for inspiration
- natural philosophers (if any of you still exist)
"One: Mathematics is the language of nature. Two: Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. Three: If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature"
These ideas, even if spoken by a fictional character- that we can describe as an eligible psychiatric patient - need not be seen as any bit symptomatic of madness, rather similar thoughts have been parroted across history..... as a few examples:
1. late presocratic cult leader Pythagorus used to speak a famous ambiguous credo 'all is number'
2. Galileo Galilei phrased it slightly differently from the madman when he said "Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.".
3. or when Hawking spoke about a single unified theory by asking : "What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?"
But of course these are three people chosen at random. There are thousands of examples of brilliant people speaking of math as a central component to the world. But we may come to say:
Um what. As we look at the triangles, circles, squares and distant symbols from high school math, but that would be a mistake. The belief here is centrally that as crazy as life may seem, as much as certain things come as curve balls and surprises in this world that if we were to peer deeply at nature's nature, we would find it in fact has a nature. A predictability, a structure a fashion and possibly, to invoke Feynman's commentary, a very consistent ability to follow its own laws. Without any failure.
The history of science can be seen as the subtle discovery of the mathematical traits, or the quantifiable and geometric discoveries by human beings. From newton discovering the clockwork of where a cannon ball would land in his mechanics, to Mendel predicting the probability of traits that may appear in the next generation of peas - these numbers are near omnipresent. we are brought to question in these reflections:
If knew how to map all of the nature the with the proper math, so this idea goes, then maybe we can understand everything. Perhaps we can become gods? Perhaps that silly show rick and morty, in whee a scientist is nearly omnipotent from his understanding of nature is a possible ending point for humanity.
Who knows.
But if you are interested in these sorts of questions. That being, how mathematical in fact is nature. Newman's compilations is a great place to go for information. He is, the editor, not the writer here. There is no single writer as it is a collection of essays from across the mathematical sciences. Some are highly speculative - such as the one writer that presented an argument that war can be predicted algorithmically, or those more innovative like those attempting to apply math to genetics.
In short, while the first volume of Newman's collection presented a great deal of foundational papers on mathematics - presenting the reader with an introduction to the philosophy of math, this by contrast, introduces the reader to the power of math to explain the world around us.
It is very worthwhile for those interested.
Recommended for :
-Mathematical scientists
- scientists interested in how math can be applied
- mathematicians looking for inspiration
- natural philosophers (if any of you still exist)
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