-Clifford Pickover
Mysticism fascinates all. Math fascinates (remarkably) few. So it might come as a surprise that a lot of mysticism has its roots in math (admittedly ancient though). Take for exaple the tetrektys of pythagoreans, who lived about 2500 years ago
It was a symbol they worshipped. It shows important musical intervals (3:2-fifth, 4:3-fourth, 2:1-octave), and pythagoreans beleived that just as simple numerical ratios create harmony in music, so is true for the Universe. The total number of dots is 10, which a triangular number. Or consider the sacred pentacle,
the digonal of which is in golden proportion with its side, which is considered to be the most irrational number of all (if you want to know why, go here). And if you want more of this stuff (and chances are you do if you've read 'Da vinci'), be sure to pick a copy of The Loom of God by Clifford Pickover.Pickover takes us through many places and times, we visit ancient monuments like stonehenge, see ancient computing devices like quipu, and even hear many predictions of apocalypse (many of which have passed their expiry date). There are programs in the end to compute many of the number sequences discussed (beware that many of these are in BASIC though). Overall the mathematical material is not significantly different from what is found in other popular science books, but the blend with mysticism is worth a try!
Enjoy!
[All images taken from Wikipedia].
2 comments:
I like..how you've written about the book. Feels like a professional review. And about the content, I did not follow much..but lesse some day I will :)
thanku thanku :) and sure one day you will.. assistance is always ready :)
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