A Mathematical Mystery Tour: Discovering the Truth and Beauty of the Cosmos [Hardcover]

A. K. Dewdney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 26, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0471238473 | ISBN-13: 978-0471238478 | Edition: 1

Praise for A. K. Dewdney Yes, We Have No Neutrons "We need more books like this-especially if they're this much fun to read." -Wired "Dewdney manages to make this catalog of error entertaining as well as instructive; good medicine for both skeptics and true believers." -Kirkus Reviews "Written with wit and a touch of pathos-and sure to please science lovers." -Publishers Weekly 200% of Nothing "It is impossible to read this timely, important book without enjoyment and eye-opening enlightenment." -Martin Gardner "An entertaining, stinging expos?." -Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A.K. Dewdney takes readers on a theoretical world tour to answer the question: Did humans make up mathematics, or did mathematics make up everything, including humans? After all, mathematical formulas seem to perfectly govern the cosmos, and the ur-mathematician Pythagoras himself believed that mathematics makes up reality. Dewdney has taken it upon himself to examine this fundamental question, beginning his journey in Miletus, the ancient home of Pythagoras and other deep thinkers. There, he meets the fictional Dr. Petros Pygonopolis, the first of his guides through space and time in search of mathematical meaning in history. His journey continues with stops in the Arabian desert (for insight into ancient Islamic astronomy with Professor al-Flayli), Venice (where Maria Canzoni reveals the mysteries of atomic theory), and England (home of the "engines of thought" in the form of Alan Turing's mind machines, as explained by Sir John Brainard). Dewdney's style is accessible, his knowledge is thorough, and his sense of humor is refreshing, if a bit geeky. A Mathematical Mystery Tour is not a difficult read, although the ideas it attempts to clarify are quite abstract. The fictional tour guides at each port of call are helpful in humanizing the intimidating subject matter. --Adam Fisher

From Publishers Weekly

Does the realm of numbers exist independently of numbers' manifestations in physical structures, awaiting our discovery? Or has humanity created mathematics and then found that it applies wondrously well to creation? Dewdney (200% of Nothing: The Armchair Universe) spins an absorbing narrative in which he searches the globe for answers to these questions. In order to consult colleagues on the nature of math, the author travels in his imagination to the temple of Miletus, where Pythagoras once worked; to the Jordanian desert under a night sky; to the damp palazzos of Venice; and finally to the golden-tinted spires of Oxford. Dewdney refers to important mathematical discoveries, many of which were made by scientists in different cultures independently of one another, in an attempt to puzzle out whether we discover or create mathematics. Unfortunately, too much attention is given to the history of math, which many other writers have addressed, while not enough is devoted to the application of the author's fictional discussions in order to answer his questions. Intriguingly, at the end, Dewdney turns to the ideas of "essential content," "the holos" and even a cosmos "permeated with consciousness," for possible ultimate answers. Throughout, his plotting and dialogue work well, though he miscasts himself, albeit effectively, as a mathematical na?f. There's not much new here for the mathematically sophisticated. Those less informed, but interested in the history of mathematical discovery and the deep issues Dewdney raises, will, however, find the book to be an amenable introduction to a difficult subject.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 218 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (February 26, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471238473
• ISBN-13: 978-0471238478
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,516,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Deep, accessible beauty in mathematics, February 6, 2000

By 

Rafael Olivas (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Mathematical Mystery Tour: Discovering the Truth and Beauty of the Cosmos (Hardcover)

Four journeys, four hosts, one traveler and an infinite mystery. Where does mathematics end and physics begin? Or is it the other way around? What is the language of ultimate reality, and is this invention a chimera, or does reality reflect inself in the language used to understand it?

Take the journey with Dewdney and come away a little better for it. You'll share beauty under the immense heavens in the desert night, or felt in conversation along a garden path. I'll bet you never thought that metaphysics, physics and math could ever taste or feel so wonderful.

A rarity among texts in the field, sampling these delights will be immediately enjoyable to those with little exposure to math or physics or philosophy, but can also satisfy those with more experience and education. As with other books that dare to be written for the "layman" reader, purists may object to the lack or rigor or occassional whimsy. To them I say, "just go back to your ivory tower." Compared to other texts which may prove more comprehensive or rigorous, Dewdney's offering has it's own unique charm and is probably much more accessible than others. There is nothing wrong with bringing charm to science writing. We need more books like this.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tour is actually Discovering the Truth & Beauty of the Holos, June 28, 2002

By 

Erich Landstrom - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Mathematical Mystery Tour: Discovering the Truth and Beauty of the Cosmos (Paperback)

Tour is certainly a rare book, one on mathematical philosophy. After all, it is commonly accepted that physics describes the real world, while metaphysics grapples with the questions of what is real? With that being said, Dewdney turns his attention the tools of mathematics that Physics uses in its descriptions, and ponders if there could be the "meta-mathematical." In Tour, he undertakes to answer two questions. First, why is mathematics so amazingly successful in describing the structure of physical reality, and second, is mathematics discovered or is it created? These are not trifling questions. Consider the discovery of the planet Neptune. In 1845, the 23-year old British John Couch Adams completed calculations pinpointing a new planet that he believed was perturbing the orbit of Uranus. That same year, French astronomer Urban Jean LeVerrier independently published his prediction of the position of the new planet, within a degree of Adams. Alone, this proves almost nothing. Given the same set of data from observations, regardless of how complex the celestial mechanics are, the formulae do not change and accurate algebraic answers should agree (although they do provide standalone verification for each other). What happened next though transforms a merely mathematical exercise into Dewdney's quest to understand the true nature of math. On the same night they read of it, Johann Galle and Heinrich d'Arrest at the Berlin Observatory search and see an eighth magnitude "star" right where LeVerrier envisaged it. Dewdney dares asks, "Why is the physical universe determined (or accurately describable) to so great an extent by Mathematical ideas?"
To answer, Dewdney employs what in the preface he describes as "a fictional narrative," that leads from Greece to Arabia to Italy to England. However, his level of detail and his concluding notes in the postscript lead me to question how fictional the four characters are who elucidate on the subject. I suppose that is to be expected in a work of philosophy, blurring the distinction of who is real. There is one other "character," dead some 2,500 years, but whose mystical and mathematical spirit is still felt: Pythagoras. Carl Sagan credits Pythagoras as the first to "use the word Cosmos to denote a well-ordered and harmonious universe, a world amenable to human understanding" (hence the title for Sagan's series; and now you know the rest of the story!) The followers of Pythagoras developed an entire mathematical cult, a sect that sincerely believed that through math they were glimpsing a perfect reality, a nonmaterial higher realm, of which the physical world was a manifestation. The dwellers of Plato's cave were inheritors indirectly of the Pythagoreans: "The stars that decorate the sky, though we rightly regard them as the finest and most perfect of visible things, are far inferior, just because they are visible, to the true realities; that is, to the true relative velocities, in pure number and perfect figures, of the orbits and what they carry in them, which are perceptible to reason and thought but not visible to the eye. (The Republic, Plato, book VII, 529-E)." In his first stop, along the coast of the Aegean, Dewdney encounters the "holos," the place where all of mathematics, known and unknown, exists. The Cosmos is the manifestation, but the holos is the source, so much so that the Tour is actually Discovering the Truth and Beauty of the Holos. But be cautioned though that a proper frame of mind is a prerequisite. Just as Galileo's journals show he observed Neptune in 1612 but failed to recognize it for what it was, so to Tour benefits from a second or third revisit for complete comprehension.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, educational and thought provoking, March 27, 1999

By 

Michael (Flower Mound, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Mathematical Mystery Tour: Discovering the Truth and Beauty of the Cosmos (Hardcover)

Not a difficult read, but you'll need some background understanding of mathematics to stay interested. The basic question of whether mathematics is discovered or created runs throughout the book as Dewdney travels around, meeting interesting characters who try to help him answer the question. A few vivid descriptions of Dewdeny's travels relieve some of the theoretical discussions and the character development of the people he meets are interesting, but some end abruptly. Overall, a thought provoking little book.