The Big Bang of Numbers (Manil Suri)
Early Review
This review is the initial impression of our editorial team after reading approximately one-tenth of the book.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in the Early Review might not necessarily have a correlation with the Final Review of the book.
When an adept marketeer writes books, the result is a book
such as 'The Big Bang of Numbers'. Everything from the title itself to the introduction cheekily
subtitled "The Poper Made Me Write This Book" promises to be a fascinating read even for a subject
that is revered by the millions but billions find intimidating, to put it mildly. For a late bloomer
like myself who started appreciating mathematics only after those excruciating experiences with high
school algebra, trigonometry and calculus, mathematics now seems to be the forbidden love affair from
one's childhood, and adolescence, that could not be consummated due to extraneous factors. So, any new
book on the philosophy of science or mathematics is always a means to rekindle that flame reinforced by
that sense of hapless nostalgia. As book progresses, the ambitious, albeit unoriginal, project hailed
as "creatio ex nihilio" (creation out of nothing) seems to fall way short of expectations. To borrow
from Shakespeare's Macbeth, the book ends up being a marketing pitch that is "full of sound and fury"
and very little substance. Suri's work seems to have distant echoes of Terence Tao's 'Analysis I', where
the latter too undertakes the task of building all the axioms of arithmetic, more precisely, number
theory and set theory from the simplest axioms in the first two chapters. To his credit, Suri has
changed the order of these two branches of mathematics, making it more accessible to the uninitiated.
Here's to hoping that the rest of the book has more substance and doesn't leave a reader who really
wanted to like, no, love the book on the subject whose wonders he would've liked to explore during his
formative years.
Original Title : The Big Bang of Numbers: How to Build the Universe Using Only Math
ISBN : 1526622955 (ISBN13: 9781526622952)
Edition language : English
Published : 20 September 2022
Summary
An engaging and imaginative tour through the fundamental mathematical concepts—from arithmetic to infinity—that form the building blocks of our universe.
Our universe has multiple origin stories, from religious creation myths to the Big Bang of scientists. But if we leave those behind and start from nothing—no matter, no cosmos, not even empty space—could we create a universe using only math? Irreverent, richly illustrated, and boundlessly creative, The Big Bang of Numbers invites us to try.
In this new mathematical origin story, mathematician and novelist Manil Suri creates a natural progression of ideas needed to design our world, starting with numbers and continuing through geometry, algebra, and beyond. He reveals the secret lives of real and imaginary numbers, teaches them to play abstract games with real-world applications, discovers unexpected patterns that connect humble lifeforms to enormous galaxies, and explores mathematical underpinnings for randomness and beauty. With evocative examples ranging from multidimensional crochet to the Mona Lisa’s asymmetrical smile, as well as ingenious storytelling that helps illuminate complex concepts like infinity and relativity, The Big Bang of Numbers charts a playful, inventive course to existence. Mathematics, Suri shows, might best be understood not as something we invent to explain Nature, but as the source of all creation, whose directives Nature tries to obey as best she can.
Offering both striking new perspectives for math aficionados and an accessible introduction for anyone daunted by calculation, The Big Bang of Numbers proves that we can all fall in love with math.