books
What can we do in front of the increasing difficulty of mathematical and scientific problems? Axiomatization could be an answer, but not all theories could be turned into a deductive system. What’s more, in spite of the generality of one’s research, its personal impact could be devastating.
uncertainty
Physics and mathematics are commonly regarded as complicated domains of research. They are also exact. How could this be when at the heart of modern physics there’s Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and mathematics has been working with probabilities and complex systems for decades?
math
Ancient Western spirituality and popular wisdom contain many numbers that have magical or symbolic meaning, such as 3, 5, 7, or 9. Indian scriptures of antiquity, however, are much more daring and precise. Would you believe in precisely 8,400,000 reincarnations?
books
Fictionalized biographies of great researchers explain through metaphors and symbols the amplitude of their work. Chilean writer Benjamín Labatut’s novels argue that the most powerful impact is on the minds of those luminaries.
pens
Among pencils preferred by artists and ballpoint pens that just do their job, fountain pens have a special place in history. We may not know how many theorems were written with them, but there are some well documented connections between mathematicians and their fountain pens.
culture
Along with education and experience, culture creates our entire worldview. Cultural nuances also induce biases, and sometimes, they could influence the way we see geometry or numbers.
books
Mathematics is largely the history of mathematical problems, but it also has a story that avoids equations, formulas, or theorems.
math
Sometimes, curiosity about the origin of a mathematical term becomes a search that spans centuries. Or it just ends with a joke. Either way, it could be more memorable than the equations it was meant to explain.