March 14, 2018 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
I am now quoting Paul Erdős, the Hungarian
mathematician on the ineffability of mathematical beauty:
“Why are numbers beautiful?
It’s like asking why is Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony beautiful.
If you don’t see why, someone can’t tell
you.
I know numbers are beautiful.
If they aren’t beautiful, nothing is.”
Bertrand Russell explained the idea of
mathematical beauty in his 1919 book ‘Mysticism and Logic: And Other Essays’ in
the chapter titled ‘The Study of Mathematics’:
“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not
only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of
sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature without the gorgeous
trappings of beauty or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern
perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation,
the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest
excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.”
My own take is that just like many things
on this planet beauty in many ways is not a scientific word unlike say symmetry
or average.
Anything that is subjective inherently means
that each brain reacts differently in terms of the type of neurotransmitters secreted
in response to it and the quantity of it that in turn translates into varied
subjective perception that it experiences.
It is well known that evolutionarily there
are many things that are in general very appealing or disgusting to most
brains.
For instance, two hungry brains no matter if
they have been socially programmed to be a meat-loving one and meat-repulsive
one, would still end up with similar responses of intense salivation when given
a visual stimulus of food, no matter what the food type shown may be.
So biological responses are very similar
for almost all brains as all have them are the by-product of same millions of
years of evolution.
But responses to cultural stimuli such as
music, paintings, books and numbers which are of very recent origins tend to
elicit markedly variable responses depending upon the genetic proclivities and
cultural upbringing.
Yet, most brains can be made to ‘see’ the beauty
in mathematics if perhaps taken due pains to first get rid of the fear of failure
of any sort supplemented with a patient discourse on the subject.
So in that manner, let me try to briefly
illustrate the beauty of conic sections and how even you can produce it.
Imagine that you placed an order for a cake
that has a shape of cone, just like the cone of an ice-cream, the only
difference being that your cake cone will have to be inverted with its tip
being on top and its circular base at the bottom.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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