mathematics as religion (by compasswallah)
TRANSCRIPT
Mathematics As Religionby Compasswallah at BITS, Pilani 2016
Twitter: @fadesingh
Some personal reminiscences
IIT KharagpurThe Impossible NozzleFoucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
“That was when I saw the Pendulum.
The sphere, hanging from a long wire set into the ceiling of the choir, swayed back and forth with isochronal majesty.
I knew -- but anyone could have sensed it in the magic of that serene breathing -- that the period was governed by the square root of the length of the wire and by pi, that number which, however irrational to sublunar minds, through a higher rationality binds the circumference and diameter of all possible circles.
The time it took the sphere to swing from end to end was determined by an arcane conspiracy between the most timeless of measures: the singularity of the point of suspension, the duality of the plane's dimensions, the triadic beginning of pi, the secret quadratic nature of the root, and the unnumbered perfection of the circle itself.”Mathematics As
ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
History of ScienceLiterature, science or theology?
“The Pendulum told me that, as everything moved -- earth, solar system, nebulae and black holes, all the children of the great cosmic expansion -- one single point stood still: a pivot, bolt, or hook around which the universe could move. And I was now taking part in that supreme experience. I, too, moved with the all, but I could see the One.....”
- Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum (1988)
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
What is Truth?Purity and Platonism, versus probabilityAnd engineering physics and science.
The Church Of GravityNewton believed that gravity was the will of God, he was a “medium”. Gravity as destroyerAnd protector both. The fate of comet Shoemaker-Levy...
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
Temples Of Geometry Samurai Japan and sangaku,science after the Meiji Resoration, The Saturnian rings of Hantaro Nagaoka
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
Temples Of Geometry
Yellamma Temple, Karnataka represents a fractal cosmology. What are fractals?
Photo: by Paul Prudencewww.dataisnature.com
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
Word Or Image?Kufic calligraphy, 7-9th century(??) Greek Geometry in the hands of the Islamic Golden Age, new tools and instruments,But the same text – the Koran.
Crystallography, magnetism and geometry In Islam. Mathematics As
ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
Word And Image
Zoomorphic calligraphy, unknown artist
Meanwhile, the Renaissance in Europe is ready .
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
Opening Of A Universe
Negative numbers, negative roots. Caspar Wessel and others.
Imaginary numbers, how algebrabecame Geometrized.
Now symmetry can be applied to Algebra.
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
"The divine spirit found a sublime outlet in that wonder of analysis, that portent of the ideal world, that amphibian between being and non-being, which we call the imaginary root of negative unity.''
- Gottfriend Leibniz, circa 1673
Magic In Mathematics
Unexpected unity in theorems, Exceptional Objects as Miracles.
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
Magic In Mathematics
This magic square was created by Leonhard Euler (1707-1783). Each row and each column sum to 260. Each half-row and half-column sum to 130. The square is also a knight’s tour: a knight could visit each square on a chessboard exactly once by following the numbers in sequence.
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
The Rise Of Calculus
This manuscript page from 1665 shows a 23-year old Isaac Newton calculating the area under a hyperbola to 55 decimal places,By hand.
Problems with infinity.
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
Measuring InfinityIntegers and evens are equally infinite,Irrationals are a greater infinity.
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
Measuring Infinity
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
The Axiomatic God of GödelUnity and completeness in mathematics,Provable and unprovable conjectures. Examples thereof. Mathematics As
ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
A Brief Story Of Polyhedra ...plate on the right fromMax Bruckner, "Vielecke und Vielflache" (Leipzig, 1900)
“If a ‘religion’ is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel has taught us that, not only is mathematics a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.”
J.D. Barrow in Between Inner Space and Outer Space, Oxford University Press, 1999, p 88.
Mathematics As ReligionA talk by Compasswallah Twitter: @fadesingh
शुक्रीया!for coming...I'm @fadesingh on Twitter
http://compasswallah.tumblr.comCOMPASSWALLAH