A book review on “A Certain Ambiguity, A Mathematical Novel” by Suri and Bal
“If mathematics is so beautiful, why haven’t I ever heard anyone talk about it that way before?”
“I’m not sure,” said Nico. “Maybe it’s because mathematics is not a spectator sport. You have to do it to appreciate it, and doing it requires patience and persistence. You can love a song without being able to sing, but that doesn’t work in mathematics. Nevertheless, the beauty is there for you to find.”
According to the story, Peter was the one asking the first question about the idea of mathematics being beautiful. I can relate with him since I know for sure that most of my classmates or friends thought of mathematics as anything rather than claiming it as a beautiful subject. Maybe even using the word beautiful together with mathematics is somehow unlikely to happen, but well, exceptions to those math enthusiasts. With the conversation mentioned above, even at the start of the story the characters were also curious as to how the word beautiful managed to be with mathematics. And fortunately, with the answer of the professor (Nico) the student body settled with it. And I strongly agree with the answer of the professor. Mathematics is not some kind of a spectator sport wherein everyone is expected to indulge with it partially and expect entertainment as a result. But, in order to appreciate mathematics patience and persistence are required, not just sit around comfortably, watch or stare, and then obtain the expected results.
Confronting complex formulas and equations can surely make our brains straighten up, but after which, when we were able to comprehend the ideas behind such equations or problems and then able to find the answer, we can now see clearly the beauty that lies within every complex problems. Finding answers to problems is like finding treasures at a treasure hunting activity. Different problems arise from different points of the activity, but with great effort, patience and persistence, finding these treasures could never be a problem.
The book started with the nostalgic flashback of the life of Mr. Ravi Kapoor. The flashback started with the moments he treasured together with his grandfather, addressed by the characters as Bauji, especially when his grandfather gave him the calculator and of course with a mathematical problem. His grandfather showed him how interesting mathematics can be. Using his calculator, he was able to solve the mystery behind the mathematical situation his grandfather gave him. But unfortunately, his grandfather died the next day. Even though he was gone, Ravi’s relationship with him grew stronger each day. With the influence of his grandfather, Ravi became a math enthusiasts.
Maybe during Ravi’s initial college days in Stanford University he did not incline a strong bond with mathematics and so experiencing difficulty as to what major he prefer, but still he showed his unmeasurable attachment towards mathematics. Even though he was an Economics major student, he then regained his insurmountable passion towards mathematics when he met Professor Nico. Professor Nico made him take one of his courses offered; “Thinking about Infinity”. The professor found a paper with a footnote telling that Ravi’s grandfather conceived the main ideas in the paper while he was situated in a New Jersey jail. Starting here, the story proceeds in two intertwining topics; first, lectures of Professor Nico present different math topics in accordance to infinity, and the second one is that Ravi researched as to why his grandfather was imprisoned. And as he was doing his research, a number of transcripts of philosophical discussions about the nature of truth, certainty and mathematics were gathered by Ravi. These works were conducted by his grandfather while in the jail with a judge assigned to investigate his case. He found out that his grandfather was thrown to prison under a blasphemy law. According in the Epilogue, Ravi eventually preferred a career in mathematics rather than in economics. He married Claire, a student he met at Professor Nico’s course.
This book contains both a story and mathematical ideas. The math topics mentioned and discussed in the book started from Georg Cantor, his definition of infinity and his set theory, Zeno’s paradoxes and infinitude of primes through Godel’s Incompleteness and Paul Cohen’s Consistency theorems. Philosophical discussions were also included in the book. With these philosophical discussions, the essence as well as the importance of many principles can possible be deduced.
The overall plot of the story captivated and overwhelmed me. The authors did a good job in mixing a story with mathematical and philosophical discussions. The authors did also include their present day viewpoints on mathematics since they are more than credible for such stuff given that they successfully earned their mathematics degree already. This book was written in such an amazing way that the reader will not be bored to death or not fall asleep, given that it is a mathematical novel. I’m really sure that even those teenagers which prefer reading fictitious books than school-related textbooks will try to read this. Well, reading this book can give ideas and exercise our knowledge with regards to mathematics, plus the fact that while going through each page of the book, a continuation of the story awaits. The mathematical ideas were introduced and were blended well in the story plot of the book. The authors successfully managed to present mathematics in a more humanly endeavor, meaning mathematics was presented beautifully and genuinely with a story that is completely a work of fiction.
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