Why Beauty is Truth by Ian Stewart

18th June, 2009 No Comments

And with this post we are now caught up on all our reviews! This makes me very excited and very sad. I’m working on some weightier books right now so the next few weeks will most likely be review-scarce and I’ll have to focus on things like comics, decorating with books, and some random news tidbits I’d like to share.

When I last visited my parents, my dad asked if I had nerd envy. I most definitely do. As I discussed in my review of Zero, I believe my educational experience could have been better when it comes to math. Besides different teaching methods, I recall particularly bad experiences that may have turned me against math at a young age. When I was 7, I was given detention for something like not completing my math homework. The teacher was a real witch (and my parents will agree with me on that front) and loved her three little pets who understood things quicker then the rest of us. In another class, a boy would scratch his nails on the chalkboard and I got in trouble for screaming at him. The noise is particularly painful to me and just reading Why Beauty is Truth would make a phantom of that dreadful sound. I’m considering hypno-therapy for it.

So it’s odd to me after years of being disinterested and only adequate in math and science classes that now I should be fascinated by it all. As a result, I’ve been purchasing plenty of math and physics books (never got that far in high school) that are written for people like me who sort of “get it” and are trying to wrap their brains around, well, everything. Like Zero, Why Beauty is Truth spends a lot of time focusing on the history of mathematical development. There is of course some overlap in information (Euclid, Pythagorias) but with focus on slightly different areas. With Zero we were learning about the discovery of infinity and vacuums whereas in Why Beauty is Truth sends us more towards string theory and search for the “Theory of Everything.”

For the most part I enjoyed the book, but I feel very inadequate in my ability to review it. While it is written mostly for the layperson, there’s a slight assumption that the reader is at least vaguely familiar with certain concepts when not all of us are. I’m still not particularly sure what a Lie Group is, but I have a better understanding of Schrödinger’s Cat and am at a loss as to how symmetry applies to natural science. So many other terms are flying around the book that I wonder if I missed something or if it’s just not clearly written. I think I “got” it while reading, but the terms mean absolutely nothing to me outside of the context of their introductions in the book because of my deficiency as a mathematician. Because I’m not one.

However, like I said, I enjoyed the book and found the histories of the mathematicians and physicists who have been able to work through and create a symbolic way of explaining how our world works was quite fascinating. Some of their stories are so tragic and some of them accomplished so much in a very short lifespan. I think that what attracts me to these books is the orderliness of using math to describe…everything. Granted, there is still a ways to go in our understanding of how the universe works, and Stewart points that out while discussing the limitations of string theory and alternative theories working towards explaining everything.

It could be that no Theory of Everything is possible. Although mathematical equations–”laws of nature”–have so far been very successful as explanations of our world , there is no guarantee that this process must continue. Perhaps the universe is less mathematical than physicists imagine. (p.222)

Currently my awe leads me to believe that there is a “Theory of Everything,” even if humans never figure it out. That’s not to say I believe in life on other planets–the jury is still out on that one. But looking at the math around us, in the seeds of a sunflower or understanding the Doppler effect, I can’t wrap my brain around the idea that everything isn’t mathematical. Of course, that’s a rather elitist opinion for a rather small being in a large universe. Stewart continues by questioning: “who are we to impose our parochial aesthetic on the cosmos?” (p.222).

In Why Beauty is Truth, the concept that we don’t know what we don’t know is brought up through the example of Flatland–a two-dimensional being in a two-dimensional world has no reason to know of three-dimensional worlds and shapes. Humans are not different; we are tiny specs in the scheme of things and we want things to make sense. This is why we create gods and symbols to understand math and language. But we can only work within our own limitations and hope that through learning we can surpass those limitations.

Related posts:

1. Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies) by Justina Chen-Headley I recently attended an amazing conference featuring unbelievable poets, feminists,...
2. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking The problem with a book that has the word “brief”...
3. Hot Dense Space I SWEAR that I have book reviews coming.  Five to...
4. Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart It is always a risky thing to share some truths....
5. Zero: the Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife As a former art student, I have a fond place...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.