The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics by Marcus du SautoyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
It is with books like these that I wonder why I never chose to study mathematics further. I would like to believe it was due to the abysmal, 'learn-by-rote and don't explore' method that I was forced to follow in the rat-race to pick a career. It is extremely unfortunate that I ended up quitting the subject with quite some vitriol, but it is even more unfortunate that I have begun to discover, a little too late, the very subject's beauty. Well, better late than never, right?
But hey, if I really hated mathematics, I should have never looked again at a book that extolled it. Maybe I wanted to redeem myself? Nah! Some part of me probably wanted to give it another chance despite the fact that it always tried to bring me down (all those damn exams!).
Anyway, it was with some haughtiness that I gave into this book. "Stupid mathematicians-I thought-trying to build something really difficult out of something as simple as 1,2,3...stupid theorems, stupid proofs that ended with 'hence proved'"-the rants in my head wouldn't end. I never saw the beauty of primes, never thought them special, actually I never really thought of them after high school. It didn't help that the book is written by a professor of mathematics who gushes over the subject somewhat unabashedly and with seemingly low regard for other disciplines. Sample this- "Those names [certain mathematicians] will live long after we have forgotten the likes of Aeschylus, Goethe and Shakespeare". This is just an absurd argument to me and something I completely disagree with. Really intelligent, well-read people will remember both mathematicians and bards alike, not to mention other significant scientists and artists. A really small point, but it began to put me off the writing, until I began to really get into why the Riemann Hypothesis is such a big deal and the interesting history of mathematics (I think the history more than the math part of it was interesting to me until a certain point and then maths soon began to catch up).
It was interesting to get into the minds of these brilliant mathematicians and read about how math played a role in their lives. It was nostalgic reading about the zillions of theorems that I had touched upon in another life and I felt incredibly patriotic reading about the contributions of Indian mathematicians and-believe it or not-a certain quote by an eminent British mathematician that the Indian education system played a huge role in honing his skills! (Wow, was it just me then?)
But most of all, it was fascinating to read about how little is known of the primal beat and how knowledge of at least a few of the prime numbers' secrets, starting with the Riemann Hypothesis may be linked to quantum theory and eventually a better understanding of the universe. I enjoyed the rare glimpses of humor in the author's writing [for e.g. while referring to the strange case of the autistic twins in Oliver Sacks book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat & Other Clinical Tales -"Before anyone could find out how they were doing it, the twins were separated at the age of thirty-seven by their doctors, who believed that their private numerological language had been hindering their development. Had they listened to the arcane conversations that can be heard in the common rooms of university maths departments, these doctors would probably have recommended closing them down too"]. However, the constant reminders of monetary benefits to solving problems of such significance were a bit of a turn off. Isn't eternal fame enough?
I feel like this book deserved the 4 stars I gave it, because despite some disagreement with his tone, I overall agreed with Prof. du Sautoy in that I was completely wrong in dismissing mathematics as a boring subject with no value in real life except for simple arithmetic calculations.
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