Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality

Written by Edward Frankel

Narrated by Tony Craine

What if you had to take an art class in which you were only taught how to paint a fence? What if you were never shown the paintings of van Gogh and Picasso, weren't even told they existed? Alas, this is how math is taught, and so for most of us it becomes the intellectual equivalent of watching paint dry.

In Love and Math, renowned mathematician Edward Frenkel reveals a side of math we've never seen, suffused with all the beauty and elegance of a work of art. In this heartfelt and passionate book, Frenkel shows that mathematics, far from occupying a specialist niche, goes to the heart of all matter, uniting us across cultures, time, and space.

Love and Math tells two intertwined stories: of the wonders of mathematics and of one young man's journey learning and living it. Having braved a discriminatory educational system to become one of the twenty-first century's leading mathematicians, Frenkel now works on one of the biggest ideas to come out of math in the last 50 years: the Langlands Program. Considered by many to be a Grand Unified Theory of mathematics, the Langlands Program enables researchers to translate findings from one field to another so that they can solve problems, such as Fermat's last theorem, that had seemed intractable before.

At its core, Love and Math is a story about accessing a new way of thinking, which can enrich our lives and empower us to better understand the world and our place in it. It is an invitation to discover the magic hidden universe of mathematics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ascent Audio
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781469089171

Reviews for Love and Math

[alterego970 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have studies physics and math and have a degree. I wish I had this book at the beginning of my studies. It’s great and inspiring. Highly recommended!

[rmagahiz · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I picked this book up at the library because I have been interested in pure and applied math for a long time now, although I was unacquainted with the author. He has two main subjects he wanted to convey in the book. The first one the story of how hard he had to struggle in the old Soviet system with its semi-official anti-semitism when it came to career advancement and which ended up forcing him to leave just at the time when the country was opening up to the West under Gorbachev. He had some references to mathematical ideas in this section, to provide background on the kinds of problems he was trying to solve, but at a relatively popular level. The second subject begins when he starts to work as a professional full-time mathematician in the West pursuing the Langlands program of unifying three far-flung fields in math along with the allied field of quantum physics. This was quite a bit more technical. At the very end, he talks about a couple of collaborative art projects he has been involved with. He wrote for a film project giving the proper context for the word "Love" in title of the book: which refers not to the ordinary emotion between people but the feeling a mathematician has for the beauty of mathematical truths.

I thought the book was interesting, though it seemed odd to think that it would be of widespread appeal with the rather lengthy technical sections with many pages of footnotes. He steers well clear from talking much about his domestic life with his parents and at home during his marriage, preferring to concentrate on what he did professionally. I didn't really know anything about the Langlands program as such before I read this book but had read with interest something about recent theorems connecting number theory, harmonic analysis, and Riemannian surfaces, so this was a good introduction.

[clmerle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The memoirs portion of the book were interesting as it showed how the author pursued a career in math.

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Frenkel, a world-renowned mathematician, combines his autobiography with an overview of his work on the Langlands Program, a unified theory of mathematics. The author, a Russian Jew, has had a remarkable life, first trying to educate himself while being blocked by Soviet prejudice from getting an advanced degree despite his brilliance, and then, after Perestroika, working and teaching in the U.S., to which he was invited by Harvard at age 20. The autobiography, which is scattered throughout the book, is quite amazing. The mathematical explanations, though, are very tough going and far more difficult than I had the energy (or intention) to work through. I read this for the biographical component and just skipped the math, and his is quite a story, well-worth the read.