Another Ambiguous Math Book

Another Ambiguous Math Book

Based on a simple google search, ambiguous means that something can be interpreted in more than one way, it has a double-, triple-, …, n-tuple meaning. Trust me, this book had a LOT of interpreatations and meanings. It was basically a novel plus some math stuff (weird combination, I know). The story revolves around Ravi Kapoor and his path towards a life of mathematics.

It all starts with a scene where Ravi’s grandfather, Vijay Sahi, gives him a calculator and a math problem for his birthday. Who does that to a child? I thought it was sad, I mean, what would you think if you were Ravi that night? “Oh, it’s my BIRTHDAY! Yey! A gift from gramps! It’s a…It’s a… CALCULATOR, BOOM”. Fortunately, Ravi was also a nerd so it actually worked out. That event motivated Ravi to explore the world of mathematics, until, like in all novels, someone dies, in this case his nerd idol the grandfather. And like all protagonists, he goes into a state of insecurity and indecision which leads him to a course in economics at Stanford. I thought he was running away from math, but maybe he still had some attachments (economics is somewhat like math with money and social science, right?). Here he meets another old dude, kinda like his new mentor-ish. And here starts the complex and deep parts, mainly about his grandfather being IMPRISONED FOR INFINITY (funny pun, hahaha). I think this is where the “ambiguity” lies. The novel elaborately displays the many perspectives between math, philosophy and religion. I didn’t fully understand, but Ravi’s grandfather was imprisoned because his mathematical ideas (some concerning infinity) were considered as blasphemy. At first I thought it was weird, science yeah, but math? How can that be blasphemous? The first thing that came to my mind was: “How can something that came from simply counting stuff, be a threat to religion?”. Eventually it became understandable… sometimes old laws were inevitably stupid and unreasonable.

The novel then tackles some not so memorable and boring events on how Ravi “partially” follows in his grandfathers footsteps. The ambiguity in this part is how society sees the concepts of infinity and mathematical philosophy or thought. During his grandfathers time it was considered blasphemous, useless and impractical but the same ideas were somewhat welcomed by people of Ravi’s time. I think it was mainly about certainty and uncertainty, with a little bit of infinity concepts. Another reason why I admired this book (but not enjoyed) was how the authors smoothly added the math mumbojumbo into the story. There were so many concepts and background information but it wasn’t as overwhelming as I thought it would. I felt proud whenever the novel mentioned mathematicians who I actually recognized from the Story of Math like Reiman, Cantor and Pythagoras. New names also popped up, like Zeno who did some notable stuff on axiomatic something.

There wasn’t anything that I thought was noteworthy at the last parts, maybe because I was frantically trying to read as much as possible. Almost forgot to mention the “bad guy”, Judge Taylor, who wasn’t actually that bad. I agree he was stubborn but his actions weren’t completely unjustified. Another ambiguity for me since, belief in itself is relative and subjective which is the very essence of ambiguity.

The ending was somewhat boring since it was a “realistic” story. So obviously it included the decision to continue economics or pursue mathematics. The answer is obvious, it is a MATH book after all. As all stories go, he lived happily ever after. And of course at the end there is always the “moral of the story”. in this case, I think there was a message to pursue your goals while hoping that everyone else will keep an open mind.  There was also the subtle believe in yourself, trust people, don’t judge, and many other clichéd ideas. Now that I think about it… I can’t, too much information math and literature should really limit their relationship.