Mathematical ambiguity

The gifts of 2009 are strengthening my will every minute but are also bringing heightened sensitivity. After finishing the reading of ‘A Certain Ambiguity’ by Gaurav Suri & Hartosh Singh Bal, I didn’t know how to swallow the lump in my throat for a long time.

The book is a mathematical novel lucidly questioning mathematical truths based on axioms (which is equal to calling unquestionable faith in spiritual terms). It is not a commercial novel so interesting to go deep in one go but you cannot ignore completing it as well. It is a good inspiring book for non-mathematicians to get introduced to the deeper concepts of Cantor’s Continuum Problem, Euclidian Geometry, Non-Euclidian Geometry etc on a surface level.

I was pained to know that many mathematicians including Euclid had burnt their lives to prove the Euclid’s fifth postulate. For more than 2000 years, this postulate was a challenge to geometers across the globe who had centered their lives on it but in vain. I wish to document here some of the extracts of published journals that touched my core being….

Girolamo Saccheri (1729) – …..I have spent hour after hour, night after night seeking the contradiction. Even in sleep I have dreamt about finding the refutation. My health has suffered, my loved ones have suffered, even my theological studies have been neglected…. Because it is still imperfect, I will not allow publications of this work until I die….

Baruch Spinoza (1656) – Today I was excommunicated. I was excommunicated for speaking the truth. It seems the truth was too stark for those who sat in judgment over me……. Instead of being persuaded by my common-sense deductions, they have accused me of blasphemy and thrown me out of their society….

Letter from Farkas Bolyai to his son Janos (1820) – I beg you, son, write poetry or plays, teach music or build homes, even grow apples or oranges if you like. In heaven’s name, do anything except try to prove the fifth postulate…… For God’s sake, I beseech you, give it up. Fear it no less than sensual passions because it, too, may take all your time, deprive you of your health, peace of mind, and happiness in life.

Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1855) – I am blind and sick now and I know I am dying. My dearest eldest son has already died, I am in debt, my marriage has failed, and my career is over. But these are minor irritations compared to my greatest regret: the fact is that I have made the greatest mathematical discovery in two thousand years and have received no recognition for it….. But no one has understood the importance of this discovery. For over three decades, I have tried to get people to read this work, I have translated into French, German, and recently again to French, but it has not mattered. Nobody cares…..

Georg Cantor (1884) – I am depressed and troubled….. The quest for a solution now has a vice-like grip over me; it is impossible for me to think about anything or anyone else. I have not been out of the house for weeks and have not spoken to another human for days….

It is not the outline of the novel that touched me more but the lives of these mathematicians. There were many who had sacrificed their lives in search of space-shape connectivity. And we all know that mathematicians have to prove every certainty logically. Once again I came to realise that it is always lonely for those whose passions are truly sublime and esoteric. When there is none to share your passion, the pain is more felt in the heart.

After finishing the book, I didn't know how to dissipate the choking sensation in my throat, for my sensitivity had heightened to the extent of feeling the helpless agonies of the mathematicians in my being.

So, standing in the kitchen, my eyes searched for those lost souls in the sky through the window. Yes, I was searching for those few rare souls who were caught in mathematical ambiguities and lived their entire lives with a single goal beyond animal passions and selfish calculations but failed to prove…..