From kindergarten to high school – and even in college, we learned mathematics through reading math books and textbooks. Line by line, we were to read the lessons in the hope that we learn the concepts and principles behind those mathematical ideas, axioms and theorems. Line by line we read. Line by line we studied. And line by line we memorized. But let us face it, we don’t remember most of what we read, studied and memorized. The lines of those mathematical books have been left in the past and have long been forgotten.
We may have read them, studied them and memorized them but we have failed to understand them. And if given a mathematical textbook, most students won’t even flip the page if their teachers won’t force them to. And this is most probably because we easily get bored reading mathematical books because it is written in way that is so formal, so straightforward and just simply so boring. To put things simply, we believe mathematics is boring.
Contrary to this belief, the book A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel written by Indian authors Gaurav Suri and Hartosh Singh Bal shows us that reading mathematics too can be fun and fascinating. A winner of the 2007 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Mathematics, this mathematical fiction talks about finding certainty in mathematics and philosophy. (Wikipedia, 2013)
This compelling novel talks about the journey of Ravi Kapoor, of Indian nationality who pursued his studies in Stanford University, America, where he discovers that he confronts the same mathematical and philosophical dilemmas that his mathematician grandfather had faced before – which had been a factor that landed him in jail. The grandfather, Vijay Sahni, was charged in 1919 under an obscure blasphemy law in a small town in New Jersey. The skeptical judge challenged him to defend his belief that the certainty of mathematics can be extended to all human knowledge – even religion. (press.princeton.edu, 2013)
In the novel, Kapoor and his grandfather struggled with the questions of “whether there can ever be absolute certainty in mathematics or life?” Along with contemplating these very philosophical question is the act of reconsidering their fundamental beliefs and perspectives. Their journey in queering these mathematical questions led them to explore the parallel development that exists in the study of geometry and infinity. (press.princeton.edu, 2013)
Beginning with a nostalgic flashback experienced by Ravi Kapoor to the time his mathematician grandfather gave him a math problem to try on a calculator, the story starts with the passing along of the grandfather’s interest on mathematics to his grandson Ravi. Upon Vijay’s death, Ravi inherits a large sum of money for the purpose of sending him to college in America. And soon Ravi gets accepted to Stanford where he majors in Economics. (Vestal, D., 2007)
During his senior year, Ravi decides to take a class called “Thinking About Infinity”, and in this class he learns more than what he expected to learn. (Vestal, D., 2007)
In his class, not only did he learn about mathematical principles and concepts on infinity but as well as the facts about his grandfather spending some time in America which landed him in jail for blasphemy. Wanting to dig deeper into it, he reads court documents to find out what exactly happened. From there he finds out that the American judge, John Taylor, who was trying to decide what to do with his grandfather was a Christian who looks to religion for certainty while his grandfather, who was an atheist, looks to mathematics for certainty. However Vijay’s faith in mathematics was shaken by the appearance of non-Euclidean geometry in astrophysics. (Vestal, D., 2007)
The novel tells us a lot of mathematical concepts and philosophy mostly through the author’s act of incorporating them to the lectures that Ravi attends. (Vestal, D., 2007) Some of these math topics that were discussed in the book were elementary mathematics of infinity, set theory, Euclidean geometry, non-Euclidean geometry, Zeno’s paradoxes and infinitude of primes through Godel’s incompleteness and Paul Cohen’s Consistency Theorems. (Bogomolny, A., n.d.) The authors also presented the history of mathematical certainty, and they have done this through imagining things like letters and journal entries from Pythagoras, Nicole Oresme, Cantor and many more. (Vestal, D., 2007) And while doing this, they have presented mathematics as a human endeavor. (Bogomolny, A., n.d.) (The authors have stressed that these writings were purely fictional and have expounded the history in the notes section by the end of the book). (Vestal, D., 2007)
The book ends with Ravi choosing the career leading to mathematics instead of the path leading to economic (which could have led him to make more money). (Bogomolny, A., n.d.)
This novel is unlike any other math books I have encountered. Unlike the usual math books and textbooks, this book is compelling in every aspect you look at it. It is fun and fascinating without jeopardizing its mathematical content. This is unlike any other math books. This is a mathematical novel. This is a mathematical fiction. And most of all this is a mathematical book.
Mathematical Novel. Math books are usually written in a manner that is formal, straightforward and full of jargons. They may be understandable to those within the academe of mathematics but for those like me, we see a jumble of words which makes it hard for us to understand the concepts behind them. However, this book has shifted anew, grasping another style. From being a boring math textbook, it wanted to metamorph into something different, something that people would actually want to take from the shelf, something that people would actually want to flip the pages, and something that people would actually want to look forward to read during their leisure and free time. It became something. It became a novel. And we have to remember that novel means there is a story behind those pages, and people love stories. People don’t like reading explanations and boring definitions, they want to feel the thrill, the mystery and the excitement that the characters feel in the novel. And with this book being a novel instead of the usual textbook, people are going to be enticed to read it. And instead of just forgetting the concepts people read in mathematical textbooks, in a novel, we would remember it more because they can associate it to circumstances and stories within the novel.
Mathematical Fiction. Aside from being a novel, this book is under the genre, fiction. That it is make-believe. And this ignites desire from people to actually read this book. People are more inclined to read fiction because men are adept to imagining things. Aside from this, people want things to happen, that is why more often than not, we find ourselves day dreaming of a better life and of a better status. And aside from this, fictional stories allow us to think ourselves. It stretches our imagination. We want to know why it happened, what could happen and what could have happened? It even ignites the curiosity that is within us. And if we are curious we actually dig deep into things. This is what happens once you read this book, you get curious and you end up searching and digging deeper into things. And we actually get more attached to it. We might even start looking up on mathematical concepts that were mentioned in the book just to feed our curious minds. And thus we learn more from this thought provoking book.
Mathematical Book. But above all, this is a mathematical book. Mathematical ideas, concepts and principles were intertwined with the plot and the characters of the story to make it more interesting. From the start of the book, we have come across different mathematical topics already. Almost every page of the book is talking about mathematical concepts, ideas and principles. We encounter mathematics in the different scenes and situation in the story. We learn new concepts, theorems and principles through Ravi’s experience, intellect and analysis. The plot, the character, the genre, is all but a cover to the true essence of the book, which is to bring mathematics to its readers. And it has done it so successfully. What is meant here is that, this book is so exciting that we actually read and understand mathematical concepts, ideas and principles better because we are inclined to the excitement of what is going on in the story. Let us face it, people can’t finish one whole mathematical textbook and understand rather, we’ll just confuse ourselves with the jargons and confusing mathematical axioms. We might not even finish one whole chapter. But in this book we not only have a novel and a fiction but what is most important is we learn and understand the mathematical concepts and topics that the authors want to impart on us. We actually get acquainted with more mathematical concepts and topics as we read deeper into the story all because many mathematical topics are intertwined with the flow of the story.
This book has provided us with new perspective into looking at mathematics. Who would have thought that mathematics could be intertwined with novel? Who would have thought that mathematics could be this interesting? But most of all whoa would have thought that the beauty of mathematics could be reflected through this book being a novel, a fiction and a mathematical book.
Before when we use to read math textbook, line by line we read, line by line we study, and line by line we memorize, yet through those lines we failed to understand and remember.
Now, though this book being a novel and through the fictional story, we have come to appreciate math and its beauty.
REFERENCE:
Bogomolny, A. (n.d.) Reviewed by Alexander Bogomolny [Review of the book A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel]. Cut the Knot. Retrieved February 13, 2014 from http://www.cut-the-knot.org/books/Reviews/CertainAmbiguity.shtml
Vestal, D. (2007, September 26). Reviewed by Donald L. Vestal, on 09/26/2007 [Review of the book A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel]. Mathematical Association of America. Retrieved February 13, 2014 from http://www.maa.org/publications/maa-reviews/a-certain-ambiguity-a-mathematical-novel
A Certain Ambiguity. (2013, December 12). In Wikipedia. Retrieved February 13, 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Certain_Ambiguity
A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel. (2014, January 14) In Princeton University Press. Retrieved February 13, 2014 from http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8479.html
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