What do you think?
Rate this book
Orthogonal Thinking: My Own Search For Meaning In Mathematics, Literature & Life
What is the purpose of your life?
From a motor-coach collision in the hills of Surrey to a chance encounter on the beaches of Clifton; from the steps of UCT in the twilight of apartheid to the ancient Mayan temples of Mesoamerica; from the cobblestoned streets of San Cristóbal in the throes of civil war to the quartzitic sandstone rock of the Cederberg mountains…
Orthogonal Thinking is David Buckham’s attempt to stitch together these unique moments in time and place to make an argument for an inherent and meaningful purpose to life. In recounting his personal journey, he interweaves his odyssey through life with deep mathematical insights and literary epiphanies found in great works of fiction and poetry to convey
a unique philosophy – a fresh perspective on the existential questions that have challenged humanity since the dawn of time.
“A mind-bending tale of our relentless search for meaning in a world that yearns for order in chaos.”
– MICHAEL AVERY
From a motor-coach collision in the hills of Surrey to a chance encounter on the beaches of Clifton; from the steps of UCT in the twilight of apartheid to the ancient Mayan temples of Mesoamerica; from the cobblestoned streets of San Cristóbal in the throes of civil war to the quartzitic sandstone rock of the Cederberg mountains…
Orthogonal Thinking is David Buckham’s attempt to stitch together these unique moments in time and place to make an argument for an inherent and meaningful purpose to life. In recounting his personal journey, he interweaves his odyssey through life with deep mathematical insights and literary epiphanies found in great works of fiction and poetry to convey
a unique philosophy – a fresh perspective on the existential questions that have challenged humanity since the dawn of time.
“A mind-bending tale of our relentless search for meaning in a world that yearns for order in chaos.”
– MICHAEL AVERY
204 pages, Paperback
Published September 20, 2024
2 people are currently reading
12 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 29, 2024
Glimpsing Infinity: Orthogonal Thinking Review
“3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?” - Psalm 8 (ESV)
We go about our days without looking up. There is admin to be sorted, traffic to be endured and stress to be managed. We get sucked into the fast-paced rhythms of our day-to-day, so crammed full of the unextrordinary, that we have ceased to ask ourselves the profound questions: why am I here? Why do I do the things I do? Is there a God? What do I believe? Life has become so inhospitable to the seeds of profound contemplation, without which a man will never begin to grasp the depth of his own soul or the infinite heights of the One who created it.
It is only when we see those that our minds become fertile ground for the flowers of belief to take hold. I will always declare that belief is a beautiful thing and it should be everyone’s desire to see more beauty come into the world. I (and I hope you will join me) therefore have a clear question to ask in our nihilist age of mundane thought: how can we peel the minds of men off the dust and have them stare up into the abundance of the night sky, considering their place in it all? How can we draw them to beautiful belief stirring thoughts?
In ‘Orthogonal Thinking’, I found that David Buckham has brought his solution to this question. In this book you will be brought along on a man’s journey through life, pausing at the points of importance where he faced the magnitude and grandeur of the infinite. At each of these points he shows us how he was drawn to consider his place in the cosmic order. As I read it, I couldn't help but think of the verses of Psalm 8 and see the similarities in Buckham’s story. His night sky was at one time the Reimann hypothesis, at another time the work of J.M. Coetzee and at another the mountains of the Cederberg. All these tastes of the infinite demanded the consideration of the most profound aspects of life itself. As I read this book it forced me to consider those moments in my own story. They were different in substance but similar in the response they drew out of me. The view of the ocean from my grandparents’ verandah, the stone walls and stained glass of my old school chapel, and being a small part of some three hundred voices raised in worship are just some of my glimpses of the infinite. They are moments that have brought forth undeniably beautiful thought and belief. I see in this book, and in my own life, that the solution to mundane thought is to have the mind consider the infinite.
I admire David’s bravery in sharing his deepest thoughts. More than that, I admire his desire to draw that same level of thought out of others. This book is not something to be picked up lightly, but it will help you to think bravely. I would strongly recommend that you read it, and that you choose to gaze up at the stars.
“3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?” - Psalm 8 (ESV)
We go about our days without looking up. There is admin to be sorted, traffic to be endured and stress to be managed. We get sucked into the fast-paced rhythms of our day-to-day, so crammed full of the unextrordinary, that we have ceased to ask ourselves the profound questions: why am I here? Why do I do the things I do? Is there a God? What do I believe? Life has become so inhospitable to the seeds of profound contemplation, without which a man will never begin to grasp the depth of his own soul or the infinite heights of the One who created it.
It is only when we see those that our minds become fertile ground for the flowers of belief to take hold. I will always declare that belief is a beautiful thing and it should be everyone’s desire to see more beauty come into the world. I (and I hope you will join me) therefore have a clear question to ask in our nihilist age of mundane thought: how can we peel the minds of men off the dust and have them stare up into the abundance of the night sky, considering their place in it all? How can we draw them to beautiful belief stirring thoughts?
In ‘Orthogonal Thinking’, I found that David Buckham has brought his solution to this question. In this book you will be brought along on a man’s journey through life, pausing at the points of importance where he faced the magnitude and grandeur of the infinite. At each of these points he shows us how he was drawn to consider his place in the cosmic order. As I read it, I couldn't help but think of the verses of Psalm 8 and see the similarities in Buckham’s story. His night sky was at one time the Reimann hypothesis, at another time the work of J.M. Coetzee and at another the mountains of the Cederberg. All these tastes of the infinite demanded the consideration of the most profound aspects of life itself. As I read this book it forced me to consider those moments in my own story. They were different in substance but similar in the response they drew out of me. The view of the ocean from my grandparents’ verandah, the stone walls and stained glass of my old school chapel, and being a small part of some three hundred voices raised in worship are just some of my glimpses of the infinite. They are moments that have brought forth undeniably beautiful thought and belief. I see in this book, and in my own life, that the solution to mundane thought is to have the mind consider the infinite.
I admire David’s bravery in sharing his deepest thoughts. More than that, I admire his desire to draw that same level of thought out of others. This book is not something to be picked up lightly, but it will help you to think bravely. I would strongly recommend that you read it, and that you choose to gaze up at the stars.
December 6, 2025
Apparently an attempt to determine life’s purpose, using excerpts from the author’s own life, from mathematics, and from literature.
I found the memoir aspects less interesting than the rest, apart from the brief descriptions of his time at the University of Cape Town, where he majored in mathematics and literature (and went on to do his Masters). The latter was interesting especially because I completed the first year of my own studies, majoring in English, at the same university, a decade or more before the author, so the places he mentioned were nostalgic for me, but with so little description I doubt they’d mean much to other readers. I did enjoy his studying under the great J.M. Coetzee.
But the elements I enjoyed the most were the early mathematical ones. As the theories became more advanced they started going over my head, but I loved this brief piece about the early life of the great mathematician Gauss:
Like most such works this book throws up questions rather than answers, especially about eloquent patterns.
I found the memoir aspects less interesting than the rest, apart from the brief descriptions of his time at the University of Cape Town, where he majored in mathematics and literature (and went on to do his Masters). The latter was interesting especially because I completed the first year of my own studies, majoring in English, at the same university, a decade or more before the author, so the places he mentioned were nostalgic for me, but with so little description I doubt they’d mean much to other readers. I did enjoy his studying under the great J.M. Coetzee.
But the elements I enjoyed the most were the early mathematical ones. As the theories became more advanced they started going over my head, but I loved this brief piece about the early life of the great mathematician Gauss:
In an eighteenth-century classroom in the town of Brunswick, Germany, a local schoolmaster was looking for a way to keep his elementary school children occupied while he attended to other tasks. He devised an arithmetical challenge that he was sure would keep them busy for some time, instructing the class to sum the integers from 1 to 100. Expecting them to add the numbers laboriously, one by one, he returned to his desk to focus on other work. Within moments, however, he was interrupted when one of the children, a boy named Carl Friedrich Gauss, approached his desk and quietly placed his slate on his teacher's desk.
Written on the slate was the number 5,050, the answer to the problem.
Gauss had noticed a pattern in the numbers that needed to be added together. If one were to pair the numbers from the beginning and the end of the series, each pair summed to the same value: 1 + 100 = 101 and 2 + 99 = 101 and 3 + 98 =101, and so on. Gauss realised that 50 of these pairs existed in the given number series, and he therefore simply multiplied 101 by 50 to arrive at the correct answer.
Like most such works this book throws up questions rather than answers, especially about eloquent patterns.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews