Sunday, June 10, 2007

MATH

I found this French blog, Matooblog, that is interesting, very intellectual and also, it seems, very popular. There was a post that began: “Math totally gives me a hard-on.” about Poincaré’s conjecture which after nearly a century of efforts has been solved by Grigori Perelman; some higher mathematics that I only vaguely understood. I read it and the 29 commentaries that ranged from further examples of mathematical intricacies to humorous acknowledgements of complete lack of understanding.
One Jarûd told this story:

During a mundane dinner the conversation spins out and stretches to the religious concept of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, one divine person in three and so forth.
A lady turns to Einstein: “But you as a brilliant scientist, doesn’t it chock you that three entities, whose existence cannot be proved, could be one?”
Einstein answers: “Not at all, my dear. Take exp(i.Pi): none of the three are real and yet the result is 1.”
(in fact that’s in absolute value)

2 comments:

Ai said...

I stand in awe in front of anyone who is able to understand or even love math. But such delights are not for me, no thanks!

Strange enough, in school I was very good at Physics. But Mathematics, yuck...

A Bear in the Woods said...

Although I'm far removed from trinitarian theology these days, I never thought of Pi as being an analogic illustration of the concept.
That's cool. I'm going to look up Matooblog. I tend to do very well with the French.