MAKE WAY FOR THE AWESOME DUO

Today’s generation is brimming with the newest, most high-tech technologies. From the newest iPhone 5c that has an ultrafast LTE wireless, does everything fast, has a longer battery life, and many more to the recently invented Samsung’s smart TV that lets user use voice command and gestures to change the channel, control the volume and stop videos. Amazing isn’t it? But from the past 17 years of my life I’ve never been impressed by these stuffs; not until now after discovering the unimaginable tandem of two different worlds. Make way for a mathematical novel!

           “A Certain Ambiguity” by Gaurav Suri and Hartosh Singh Bal is a fascinating book that unites novel which most people are addicted at and the beauty and philosophy of mathematics and its relevance to human understanding of the physical world.  These two different entities were woven exquisitely.

The story revolved in Ravi Kapoor’s life. It started with the main character’s nostalgic flashback with his late mathematician grandfather, Vijay Sahni, who inspired him to love mathematics with the use of a math problem and to try it on a calculator. Based on the story, Ravi and his grandfather had a very good relationship but unfortunately, the latter died the next day. Because of this, Ravi grew indifferent to mathematics. 

Beyond his knowing, his grandfather left him enough money for Ravi to use since his grandfather believed that Ravi would be a good mathematician someday. Because of these, he went to Stanford after being accepted by the university and apt himself towards a career in economics. There he worked hard and made an excellent job in all his subjects. But behind these successes, he saw no happiness in them. He also met a new friend, Peter Cage who was also his roommate. Ravi’s college life rolled quite dull up until Peter introduced him to Nico Aliprantis, a mathematician professor who is the instructor of the course Math 208 entitled “Thinking about Infinity”. Then, without Ravi knowing it, his life made a great turned out from the boring and dull life of that old Ravi Kapoor.

With help of his classmate, Claire, and her mother, Ravi soon found out that his grandfather went to America and got himself to prison in Morisette, New Jersey in the year 1919 because of blasphemy.  He also found some of the recordings his grandfather had with a judge named John Taylor. It was an incredible conversation because instead of talking about how Sahni might get out of the jail, they talked about the most interesting topic, mathematics. With the help of math, they got themselves bonded with each other although they have different philosophical views. 

In the middle of the story, Ravi was stuck in a very difficult situation. After cracking a mathematical problem, which was given to him during his job interview in New York, he was offered the job. You may think that ‘What is so difficult about it? He could just grab it and earn himself a money.’, but Nico also gave him a full scholarship to pursue his study about mathematics. See? A tough situation right? It was between a career that would really lift him from ‘poverty’ and a career that involves the thing he loves the most. Later, he chose mathematics with the help of Claire, after giving him the journal entries showing how his grandfather and the said judge bonded through mathematics. In the end, Ravi became a writer who publishes papers and a teacher. He also ended up living with Claire.

This book does not only talk about how Ravi struggles with his own worries and problems but it also involves different mathematical philosophies and personas. Some of these were Euclid’s 5 postulates, Zeno's paradoxes and infinitude of primes through Godel's Incompleteness and Paul Cohen's Consistency theorems, the Basic Set Theory, The Continuum Hypothesis and many more. On the other hand, many mathematicians were also tackled. Some of these are Zeno, popularly known for his Paradox, Italian thinker Giordano Bruno, Galileo, Bhaskara, Pythagoras, Cantor Baruch Spinoza, Euclid, David Hilbert, and many more. 

“A Certain Ambiguity” is a novel that tells a story while it makes your brains work at the same time. This book was really a new genre that should be appreciated and exposed to public. Honestly, from the 2 books I’ve read, this was the most interesting not only because it is a novel but it teaches mathematics in a very interesting way. Overall, this book does not only interest me but inculcated me with great learning about mathematics. It increased my appreciation for mathematics. I can really say, make way for the most awesome duo, mathematics and novel in a mathematical novel!