“The Great
Math Mystery” is a PBS NOVA documentary about the nature of mathematics. It´s
obviously quite basic, but still a good introduction to the subject. Mario
Livio, who has written several books on the topic, is prominently featured.
Roger Penrose and Max Tegmark are other well known scientists interviewed. Most
of the documentary explores the “essentialist”, “realist” or “Platonist” idea
that mathematics is an objectively real phenomenon “out there”, independent of
our puny human minds. Indeed, the narrator – taking his cues from Tegmark - suggests at several points that the world simply
*is* an intricate web of mathematical properties and relations.
“The Great Math
Mystery” does dare to mention Pythagoras, and even interviews a female jazz
musician who defends his ideas. Two ideas studiously avoided, however, are God
and Intelligent Design. This is almost comic since, of course, the realist
position is a strong argument for God´s existence. Indeed, one of Livio´s books
is titled “Is God a Mathematician?”
The latter part of the program explores the
opposite idea: that math is a construction of our minds. Some humorous
experiments with human child prodigies and lemurs (yes, lemurs) are featured,
but they prove neither position – even if math comes von oben (or von
Demiurgos), our brains must obviously be adapted to receive the information. A
better argument is that engineers frequently *don´t* use exact math to build
new gadgets. I think the Egyptian and Muslim high cultures had the same
approach to math – only applied math counts, actually building pyramids is more
important than Euclid´s axioms. Perhaps math works so stunningly well because
our scientists have chosen to concentrate at (and marvel at) those parts of the
universe where it does work? But what about psychology, sociology, meteorology and
large chunks of biology, where math doesn´t seem to work just as good? (Not
even ants seem to care about Hamilton´s equations!)
I admit a certain sympathy for
both positions in this debate. On the one hand, mathematics does seem to have
curious properties which make it difficult to believe that it´s just some kind
of clever contraption made by a distant relative of the lemurs known as Homo
sapiens. On the other hand, it´s equally difficult to believe that this
half-lemurian has managed to solve all the questions of the cosmos by
discovering pi, Fibonacci numbers or the googolplex. I get the feeling that the
“Platonist” position, while intellectually appealing, is really connected to
Western scientific hubris.
Yes, God might indeed be a mathematician, but I
suspect he-she-it is many other things besides…
Available on YouTube.
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