FOUR BOOKS ON MATHEMATICS AND SEVEN SHORT PHYSICS LESSONS

FOUR BOOKS ON MATHEMATICS AND SEVEN SHORT PHYSICS LESSONS

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.
Albert Einstein

Mathematics = one of the most difficult subjects for many people, while for someone it is a “cup of tea.”
Which category do you belong to?

These books, for which I sincerely thank Franca, Vincenzo and Francesco, although very different from each other, fit the concept expressed by Einstein.

1. UNCLE PETROS AND THE GOLBACH CONGECTURE

Now Stellan Skarsgard talking about Hardy and Ramanujan to Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting makes sense to me too.

 

A book on mathematics but also the book on the life of a man who has to deal with his obsession.

2. HAPPY MATHEMATICS

My dear kids, I have written this book for you …
so the author addresses the readers, the students, his children.

I was struck by these words, which apparently have nothing striking, which could be attributable to many professors in fact, but which I read differently considering that Angelo Luigi Fiorita lost his children during a bombing on Alessandria on April 5, 1945

3. MATHEMATICS AMAZING AND POETRY

 

Here we pass from the colloquial tone and expressly dedicated to children, to a vision of mathematics as humanism, it is no coincidence that Bruno D’Amore also graduated in philosophy.

Do you know the concept of Technoracy?
Technoracy is conscious familiarity with technology, the operational aspects of which are, in most cases, inaccessible to the common person. But the basic ideas behind technological tools, their potential and the dangers they entail, the moral principles underlying the use of technology are essential issues to be spread among children from an early age. History shows us that ethics and moral values are closely linked to technological progress. The three preceding aspects together constitute what is essential for being a citizen in a world that is rapidly moving towards a planetary civilization. “

4. ROCK MATHEMATICS

My favorite, ça va sans dire …
I discovered some great information!
Of course, mathematics in this light is completely different!
Above all, I would mention Kate Bush

the lyrics of this song really include the Pi π up to the 78th decimal and then from the 101st to the 137th albeit with a slight difference.
You can listen to her own voice explaining the reason during an interview with the BBC.

I really like the challenge of singing numbers, as opposed to words because numbers are so unemotional as a lyric to sing and it was really fascinating singing that. Trying to sort of, put an emotional element into singing about…a seven…you know and you really care about that nine. I find numbers fascinating, the idea that nearly everything can be broken down into numbers, it is a fascinating thing; and i think also that we are completely surrounded by numbers now, in a way that we weren’t you know even 20, 30 years ago we’re all walking around with mobile phones and numbers on our foreheads almost; and it’s like you know computers…
I suppose, um, I find it fascinating that there are people who actually spend their lives trying to formulate pi; so the idea of this number, that, in a way is possibly something that will go on to infinity and yet people are trying to pin it down and put their mark on and make it theirs in a way I guess also i think you know you get a bit a lot of connection with mathematism and music because of patterns and shapes…

But obviously the book talks about much, much more starting from a large study on the Beatles to get to Queen, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Genesis, Coldplay… well… #stylerock

Paolo Alessandrini has a blog and a youtube channel, listen to this reading of an excerpt to understand how from mathematics we go to rock to get to concepts such as self-referentiality, art, Escher

A fascinating and interesting all-round journey that can only focus on poetry or cinema as well.

There is therefore also mention of A Dream within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

All that we see or seem
is but a dream within a dream

these verses, together with a passage from Marginalia were read by Orson Welles for Alan Parson’s Project: Tales of mystery and imagination, which, as often happens with the true genius, was only able to materialize later, but that’s another story.

and finally
SEVEN SHORT PHYSICS LESSONS

“What place do we, human beings who perceive, decide, laugh and cry, in this great fresco of the world offered by contemporary physics? If the world is teeming with ephemeral quanta of space and elementary particles, what are we? We are also made only of quantum and particles? But then where does that feeling of existing individually and in the first person that each of us feel? So what are our values, our dreams, our emotions, our own knowledge? What are we, in this boundless and glowing world? “

Carlo Rovelli asks a rather difficult question.
Do you want to try to answer yourself?

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