Log24

Monday, August 1, 2022

Enowning

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 3:26 pm

Related material — The Eightfold Cube.

See also . . .

"… Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is
a black art, more akin to magic and mystery. This presents
a constant challenge to the mathematical community: to 
explain how art fits into our subject and what we mean by beauty."

— Sir Michael Atiyah, “The Art of Mathematics”
in the AMS Notices , January 2010

Friday, March 18, 2022

Architectural Review

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:30 pm
 

"Poincaré said that science is no more a collection of facts than a house is a collection of bricks. The facts have to be ordered or structured, they have to fit a theory, a construct (often mathematical) in the human mind.

… Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is a black art, more akin to magic and mystery. This presents a constant challenge to the mathematical community: to explain how art fits into our subject and what we mean by beauty.

In attempting to bridge this divide I have always found that architecture is the best of the arts to compare with mathematics. The analogy between the two subjects is not hard to describe and enables abstract ideas to be exemplified by bricks and mortar, in the spirit of the Poincaré quotation I used earlier."

— Sir Michael Atiyah, "The Art of Mathematics"
     in the AMS Notices , January 2010

Gottschalk Review —

W. H. Gottschalk and G. A. Hedlund, Topological Dynamics,
reviewed by Paul R. Halmos in Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society  61(6): 584-588 (November 1955).

The ending of the review —

The most striking virtue of the book is its organization. The authors' effort to arrange the exposition in an efficient order, and to group the results together around a few central topics, was completely successful; they deserve to be congratulated on a spectacular piece of workmanship. The results are stated at the level of greatest available generality, and the proofs are short and neat; there is no unnecessary verbiage. The authors have, also, a real flair for the "right" generalization; their definitions of periodicity and almost periodicity, for instance, are very elegant and even shed some light on the classical concepts of the same name. The same is true of their definition of a syndetic set, which specializes, in case the group is the real line, to Bohr's concept of a relatively dense set.

The chief fault of the book is its style. The presentation is in the brutal Landau manner, definition, theorem, proof, and remark following each other in relentless succession. The omission of unnecessary verbiage is carried to the extent that no motivation is given for the concepts and the theorems, and there is a paucity of illuminating examples. The striving for generality (which, for instance, has caused the authors to treat uniform spaces instead of metric spaces whenever possible) does not make for easy reading. The same is true of the striving for brevity; the shortest proof of a theorem is not always the most perspicuous one. There are too many definitions, especially in the first third of the book; the reader must at all times keep at his finger tips a disconcerting array of technical terminology. The learning of this terminology is made harder by the authors' frequent use of multiple statements, such as: "The term {asymptotic } {doubly asymptotic } means negatively {or} {and} positively asymptotic."

Conclusion: the book is a mine of information, but you sure have to dig for it.  — PAUL R. HALMOS

Sunday, March 13, 2022

Black Art

Filed under: General — m759 @ 6:26 pm

"… Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is
a black art, more akin to magic and mystery."

— Sir Michael Atiyah, quoted here on April 4, 2016.

 

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

The Follower: A Short Story for Stephen King

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:03 pm

“Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is
a black art, more akin to magic and mystery. This presents
a constant challenge to the mathematical community: to explain
how art fits into our subject and what we mean by beauty.”

— Sir Michael Atiyahquoted here on April 4, 2016

What is the vashikaran? – Quora

Mar 17, 2015 – Vashikaran is a well-known term in the field of Tantra and Mantra. It is an ancient legacy Tantra and Mantra used to control someone’s mind. It is a tantrik process …

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , — m759 @ 11:00 pm

“Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is
a black art, more akin to magic and mystery. This presents
a constant challenge to the mathematical community: to explain
how art fits into our subject and what we mean by beauty.”

— Sir Michael Atiyah, quoted here on April 4, 2016

 

Illustrations, from the American Mathematical Society Spring
2020 book sale, of a book scheduled to be published May 28.

Sunday, April 26, 2020

The Triangle of Art

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 12:00 am

This post was suggested by yesterday morning's link to  The Fano Hallows.

"Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is
a black art, more akin to magic and mystery. This presents
a constant challenge to the mathematical community: to explain
how art fits into our subject and what we mean by beauty."

— Sir Michael Atiyah, quoted here on April 4, 2016

A symbol related to  The Fano Hallows

Monday, September 24, 2018

Mathematics as Art

Filed under: General — m759 @ 8:45 am

[Revised throughout the day on Sept. 24, 2018.]

"Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is
a black art, more akin to magic and mystery. This presents
a constant challenge to the mathematical community: to explain
how art fits into our subject and what we mean by beauty."

— Sir Michael Atiyah, quoted here on April 4, 2016

Atiyah's remarks today on the Riemann hypothesis, based on his earlier
remarks on "arithmetic physics" and α, the fine-structure constant,
seem to exemplify the "magic and mystery" approach.

From some previous Log24 posts

AMS on 'mathematics, magic, and mystery,' April 2014

MAA on 'mathematics, magic, and mystery,' April 2014

Update of 6:06 PM ET the same day —

https://twitter.com/mpoessel/status/1044131977950109696

For related magic and mystery, see Log24 posts tagged on090405.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Midnight Special

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 12:00 am

(Continued)

"Poincaré said that science is no more a collection of facts than a house is a collection of bricks. The facts have to be ordered or structured, they have to fit a theory, a construct (often mathematical) in the human mind.

… Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is a black art, more akin to magic and mystery. This presents a constant challenge to the mathematical community: to explain how art fits into our subject and what we mean by beauty.

In attempting to bridge this divide I have always found that architecture is the best of the arts to compare with mathematics. The analogy between the two subjects is not hard to describe and enables abstract ideas to be exemplified by bricks and mortar, in the spirit of the Poincaré quotation I used earlier."

— Sir Michael Atiyah, "The Art of Mathematics"
     in the AMS Notices , January 2010

A post  from this  journal later in 2010 —

The above post's date — May 20, 2010 — was
the date of death for mathematician Walter Rudin.

The above post from that date has a link to the
Heinlein story "And He Built a Crooked House."
A not-so-crooked house —

Monday, April 18, 2016

A Problem

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:00 pm

(Continued, in memory of the late meteorologist William Gray,
from August 10, 2010, and from April 16, 2016.)

For some backstory, see Huàn, the Flood and Impact Award.

"… Mathematics may be art, but to the general public
it is a black art, more akin to magic and mystery."

— Sir Michael Atiyah, "The Art of Mathematics"
     in the AMS Notices , January 2010, quoted in
     Log24 on April 4, 2016.

Related material:  Gray Space and

Monday, April 4, 2016

Cube for Berlin

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , , — m759 @ 11:00 am

Foreword by Sir Michael Atiyah —

"Poincaré said that science is no more a collection of facts
than a house is a collection of bricks. The facts have to be
ordered or structured, they have to fit a theory, a construct
(often mathematical) in the human mind. . . . 

 Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is
a black art, more akin to magic and mystery. This presents
a constant challenge to the mathematical community: to
explain how art fits into our subject and what we mean by beauty.

In attempting to bridge this divide I have always found that
architecture is the best of the arts to compare with mathematics.
The analogy between the two subjects is not hard to describe
and enables abstract ideas to be exemplified by bricks and mortar,
in the spirit of the Poincaré quotation I used earlier."

— Sir Michael Atiyah, "The Art of Mathematics"
in the AMS Notices , January 2010

Judy Bass, Los Angeles Times , March 12, 1989 —

"Like Rubik's Cube, The Eight  demands to be pondered."

As does a figure from 1984, Cullinane's Cube —

The Eightfold Cube

For natural group actions on the Cullinane cube,
see "The Eightfold Cube" and
"A Simple Reflection Group of Order 168."

See also the recent post Cube Bricks 1984

An Approach to Symmetric Generation of the Simple Group of Order 168

Related remark from the literature —

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11B/110918-Felsner.jpg

Note that only the static structure is described by Felsner, not the
168 group actions discussed by Cullinane. For remarks on such
group actions in the literature, see "Cube Space, 1984-2003."

(From Anatomy of a Cube, Sept. 18, 2011.)

Friday, March 4, 2016

Cube Bricks 1984

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 12:06 pm

An Approach to Symmetric Generation of the Simple Group of Order 168

Related aesthetics —

"Poincaré said that science is no more a collection of facts
than a house is a collection of bricks. The facts have to be
ordered or structured, they have to fit a theory, a construct
(often mathematical) in the human mind. . . . 

Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is
a black art, more akin to magic and mystery. This presents
a constant challenge to the mathematical community: to
explain how art fits into our subject and what we mean by beauty.

In attempting to bridge this divide I have always found that
architecture is the best of the arts to compare with mathematics.
The analogy between the two subjects is not hard to describe
and enables abstract ideas to be exemplified by bricks and mortar,
in the spirit of the Poincaré quotation I used earlier."

— Sir Michael Atiyah, "The Art of Mathematics"
     in the AMS Notices , January 2010

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