Michael Atiyah on the late Ron Shaw —
Phrases by Atiyah related to the importance in mathematics
of the two-element Galois field GF(2) —
- “The digital revolution based on the 2 symbols (0,1)”
- “The algebra of George Boole”
- “Binary codes”
- “Dirac’s spinors, with their up/down dichotomy”
These phrases are from the year-end review of Trinity College,
Cambridge, Trinity Annual Record 2017 .
I prefer other, purely geometric, reasons for the importance of GF(2) —
- The 2×2 square
- The 2x2x2 cube
- The 4×4 square
- The 4x4x4 cube
See Finite Geometry of the Square and Cube.
See also today’s earlier post God’s Dice and Atiyah on the theology of
(Boolean) algebra vs. (Galois) geometry:
