MATHEMATICS & REALITY – Thoughts of Greatest Mathematicians of all times and other Brilliant Minds

Mathematics & Reality – Thoughts of Greatest Mathematicians of all times and other Brilliant Minds

1) Authors

Thoughts from the Greatest Minds in Mathematics, such as
⦁ G. W. Leibniz
⦁ L. E. J. Brouwer
⦁ Gotlob Frege
⦁ G. H. Hardy
⦁ Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss
⦁ Leonhard Euler
⦁ Bernhard Riemann
⦁ Isaac Newton
⦁ Georg Cantor
⦁ Pascal
⦁ Henri Poincaré
⦁ Kurt Gödel

Invited articles are from

a) J. N. Srivastava, Statistician and Mathematician

b) Bhu Dev Sharma, Former Professor of Mathematics at Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, USA

c) Luc Bergmans, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France

d) José Ferreirós, Dept. Filosofia y Logica, Universidad de Sevilla

e) Pier luigi Luisi, Professor Emeritus ETH- Zurich

f) Henk Barendregt, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands and Antonino Raffone, Sapienza University, Roma, Italy

g) Debashis Khan, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi

h) Christoph Benzmüller, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

i) Teun Koetsier, Department of Mathematics, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

j) Sandeep Kumar, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering,, IIT(BHU), Varanasi, India

k) Héctor Rosario, Ph.D. Department of Mathematical Sciences,University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus

l) Gregory Chaitin, Federal University, Rio de Janeiro

m) Manohar Lal (Kaushik), Formerly School of Computer & Information Sciences, IGNOU, New Delhi, India

n) P. B. Sharma, Vice Chancellor, Amity University Gurgaon, President, Association of Indian Universities, AIU

o) Ramgopal Uppauluri, Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati

p) Jordan Bergmans, Professional Musician and Researcher. Graduate of the Royal College of Music, London and Royal Academy of Music, London

q) Sarah Glaz, Department of Mathematics, University of Connecticut, USA

r) V. Kannan, SRM University, Andhra Pradesh, India

s) Bhagwati Prasad Chamola, Department of Mathematics, Jaypee Institute of Information Technology Noida, UP, INDIA

t) M. D. Srinivas, Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai

u) Sudipto Ghosh, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engg., IIT Kharagpur

v) Pavan Kumar, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engg., IIT Kharagpur

w) Dheeraj Dube, TIFR Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Hyderabad

x) Abhinaba Sinha, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay

2) Brief Description about the book

Mathematics has been having a deep ageless bond with Human beings. Man has been deploying his cognitive abilities to decode the secrets of Nature, as man only can see that there are patterns everywhere and a pattern of patterns, a pattern of patterns of patterns and so on. He wants to find the absolute pattern and the cause of even that. For this, man deploys many artifacts to map these patterns with his cognition and this way the patterns spread around in the nature start getting confined in his tiny intelligence.
The present volume is an attempt to get closer to Reality through Mathematics aided by thoughts by great mathematicians of all times, and thoughts by some brilliant minds belonging to current era. These thoughts present to us a completely unique paradigm to traverse Reality through Mathematics.

The first section is devoted to great minds, they being of the likes of Euler who talks about Spirit dwelling in a body; Bernhard Riemann taking us to the deep foundations of Geometry; Newton himself, talking about Infinity(ies); Leibniz explaining why a ‘Perfect Being’ exists; Cantor talking about his favorite Infinity; Pascal nicely making the distinction clear, between mathematical mind and the intuitive mind; Leibniz once again talking about the ultimate origin of things; and Brouwer on intuitionistic mathematics. Many other great thoughts too have been included in this section.

With the intellect already infused with such thoughts, the reader then lands on the second section “Foundations of Mathematics” which again is profusely flooded with scintillating articles. This section has an article by (late) Prof. J. N. Srivastava, a reputed statistician and Mathematician, wherein he presents his matured insights and expert mathematical presentation on establishing the existence of a non-material Higher Reality. This whole volume is a tribute to him as well. Section Three is devoted to “Mathematics, Life and Nature”. Articles in this section take a step further and present a possible mathematical modelling of life, Consciousness and Evolution. Section Four presents ontological arguments to prove existence of God, and this way and others, tries hand at establishing a connection between Mathematics, Computation and Divinity, if there is any. Section Five is devoted to Infinity, a concept which has since long mesmerized many, and to zero which is even more involving. Mathematics and Arts, and their connection since ages are the subject matter in the last section Section Six.

3) Topics Covered

Foundations of Mathematics; Consciousness; Logicism; Intuitionism; Formalism; Neo-Kantianism; Theory of Evolution; Ontological Arguments; Infinity; Mathematics & Arts; Mathematics in Ancient India; and many others.

4) Product Details

Hardbound: 458 pages
Publisher: Bhaktivedanta Institute, Kolkata (2018)
Language: English
ISBN: 81-89635-31-X
Product Dimensions: 6.25 x 1.4 x 9.25 inches
Shipping Weight: 32.56 ounces (923 g)

5) Excerpts

“…spirituality is the behavior and the attitude that a rational person would have if he or she had the consciousness of the ‘higher’ or ‘deeper’ Reality that surrounds us.”
– J. N. Srivastava

“… there are realities that we seek, but that we are unable to find in ourselves. They extend beyond the grasp of our minds..” – Luc Bergmans

“After all, God, being infinitely good (i.e. perfect), is defined by both Leibniz and Gödel as having all positive properties (perfections).” – Christoph Benzüller

“We are thus impelled to the conclusion to which so many things point, although they do not amount to a coercive scientific proof, that besides this material world there exists another purely spiritual order of things, with activities as various, as the present, and that this world of spirit we shall one day inherit.”
– Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss