'Men of Mathematics 2' by E. T. Bell

You may not know it but we deal with maths everyday.  Reading this blog, for instance, requires maths for the algorithms that has lead you here and for the computer/ phone/ tablet to be made enabling such reading.  Yet the stories of the men who have pushed the boundaries of the subject that has transformed our world are not popularly known.  In comes E. T. Bell with 'Men of Mathematics 2' a book of short biographies of the major mathematicians from 1793 to 1918.

I read this book as folk tales of extraordinary people who set their minds to understanding the world through the application of mathematics, full of misfortune, humour and world changing discoveries.  Take Evariste Galois: a boy with a 'madness for maths' failed in his examinations due to the stupidity of his examiners, or as one put it 'A candidate of superior intelligence is lost with an examiner of inferior intelligence'. 

 He lived during the Revolution of 1830 and at a gathering of revolutionaries he stood up with a glass in one hand and a pocket knife in the other and declared 'To Louis Philippe'- the King whereupon the next day he was thrown in prison.  He died aged twenty-one and helped lay the foundation for quantum mechanics.  See, it's not all chalkboards and compasses.

 

Poincare said that 'Mathematical discoveries, small or great...are never born of spontaneous generation.  They always presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by labour, both conscious and unconscious' and this is what you feel from reading such a book, that the journey is ever continuing and one mathematician takes off from where another leaves.  There is no greatness without learning from the past.  The fact that it is not a solidary pursuit always starting from scratch speaks to how many different things were needed from many people in order to gain the knowledge we have now. 

Mathematics doesn't even have to be approached as a science.  Take Kronecker who 'was an artist who used mathematical formulae as his medium'.  It takes intense creativity to develop the insights needed to proceed and a love of abstract thinking that is like wordplay to numbers.  It's given me a much deeper appreciation of a neglected subject that should be more a part of popular culture.  

Now it's audience participation time! If you enjoyed this blog and my previous work than you can help support me in a few ways: - by being my patron on Patreon.com -give a one off donation with Buy Me a Coffee -Buy one of my literary books -Share this blog on your social media -Leave a comment, you can even recommend me book -Follow me I can't stress enough how much all this helps me and how in the long run it will help you, so if you can and you want to please support my free content so I can keep on producing my beloved blog. Live long and prosper.

'False Dawn' by John Gray

'The problems facing the world are not fully soluble' writes John Gray (not that one) in his prophetic book 'False Dawn' with the subtitle: Delusions of Global Capitalism.  Gray might be best known for his 'Straw Dogs' a book of aphorisms about the modern human state and general pessimistic outlook scorning both Christianity and Humanism. 

This book may not be a barrel of laughs but it has turned out to be true.  First published in 1998 Gray takes on free market ideology that has been dominant since the 80s.  It's proponents convince the public that the market is the natural state of affairs, to which Gray points out that it is not 'a gift of social evolution.  It is an end-product of social engineering and unyielding political will'.  And with disastrous results. 

What one figure has stuck to me is the divorce rate in the UK in 1992.  One divorce for every two marriages, comparable only to the US.  Unemployment and family breakdown rose after deregulating labour along with a burgeoning underclass unheard of in the rest of Europe.  The visible signs of social erosion after Thatcher are so striking that she was not wrong to claim that she changed everything in Britain.  Certainly it seems that more people are losing out after her than before.

When choice is god than what difference does it make if you are paying for a divorce or pay for a car?  Effectively it nullifies morality and value judgements.  What happens to the things that we can't use money to solve, like a liveable planet or friendship?  Do these become commodified and just a product we can buy and sell?  If I look around my town I can see that the markets aren't good for even businesses let alone creating beautiful surroundings.

I think the quote at the beginning of this blog is useful to think while reading this book.  Gray also says 'free market policies lost political legitimacy while at the same time altering the economy and society in ways that democratic choice cannot reverse'.  This is not utopian thinking but he suggests that what we are becoming is where anarchy is permeant.  In 2009 he wrote an updated foreword after the financial crisis of 2008 where he seems to be vindicated of his view as the correct one before anyone else even considered the question.  We cannot go back and our future is uncertain.  There will be no one way of correcting the situation, if it can be corrected.

A sober read and argued with detail it's the book you need to read to understand out economics today and to be able to at least understand how we got here.

Now it's audience participation time!  If you enjoyed this blog and my previous work than you can help support me in a few ways:

- by being my patron on Patreon.com

-give a one off donation with Buy Me a Coffee

-Buy one of my literary books

-Share this blog on your social media

-Leave a comment, you can even recommend me book

-Follow me

I can't stress enough how much all this helps me and how in the long run it will help you, so if you can and you want to please support my free content so I can keep on producing my beloved blog.

Live long and prosper.

Blog entry on Start Somewhere Project

I've written something for a blog that tries to inspire young artists.  I talk about my journey so far and my ideas about writing linking it with mental health.  Link is below.


Writing For Me is a Way of Being