THERE IS A SECRET LIFE TO NUMBERS AND THOSE THAT WORK WITH THEM

Have you ever met a mathematician? Well this ancient fraternity has been responsible for uncountable great advances in our society. We all know of Albert Einstein and his great theories that have stood the test of time. But how about Isaac Newton and his falling apple? There are hundreds through the ages that contributed to our well-being and knowledge. Next year we will have a Leap Year. We know that the famous Pope Gregory was responsible for adding an extra day onto a year in every four. He was a mathematician as well. It turns out though that the “atomic clocks” of today are so accurate that we may have to get rid of the extra day. They calculate that we will have to add a day only every 60,000 years. But he had the right idea. The new clocks are certainly more precise.

You may not know it but the great contemporary mathematician Von Neumann was the one who first developed the ideas that would lead to building a working computer. We all love him for that. But he also worked on such things as the atom bomb. There were so many mathematicians of that era that participated. We owe them much because of the contributions they made. Through the centuries there have been the likes of the Bernoulli family that produced, from the mid-1600’s to the late 1700’s, ten great mathematicians. And they were considered all great.

Professor George G. Szpiro has written a delightful just-released book called “The Secret Life of Numbers” and it is an homage to many of the wonderful mathematical contributors of our world. If you have an interest in numbers or you know of a person that is seriously interested in a future in this study, you should read the stories the professor relates.

Yes mathematicians think differently than most of us but you will get to know their delight at discovering and theorizing. Even if you are just a computer game player, you certainly will understand the logic behind designing games.