Love and Math
The Heart of Hidden Reality
by Edward Frenkel · first published 2013
87% recommend13% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Approachable memoir-meets-math account of the Langlands Program and its links to physics, woven with the author's struggles with Soviet-era anti-Semitism; suits general readers and anyone weighing a career in math.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Love and Math tells the two intertwined stories of mathematics and the adventure of one man in learning it. The result is a story about how he became one of the twenty-first century's leading mathematicians, working on one of the biggest ideas to come out of mathematics in the last 50 years: the Langlands Program. As Frenkel proves, a mathematical formula can be as elegant and beautiful as a painting, a poem, or a piece of music. And the process of creating new mathematics is just that, an artistic pursuit--a deeply personal experience, which requires passion, dedication, and love. In Love an
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My wife gave me this great book for Christmas: Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel It begins with the author's struggle to learn the math behind quantum physics in spite of cold-war era soviet educational obstacles and leads bit by…
on “Great books about mathematics” ↗My memory isn't as good as it used to be. I thought the article was about Edward Frenkel at first who wrote the fantastic novel Love and Math [1]. It's about his life growing up in Soviet Russia as a Jewish mathematician. He was good friends with the famed physicist Murray Gell-Mann who discovered a theory of hadrons, leading to the quark…
on “On the Work of Edward Witten (1990) [pdf]” ↗A somewhat accessible account of the Langlands Program can be found in Edward Frenkel's book Love & Math.
on “Robert Langlands, who linked number theory, analysis, and geometry (2015)” ↗…eachother, in terms of total, product, difference, etc. The simplest of these methods is just Vieta's formulas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vieta%27s_formulas I highly recommend Edward Frenkel's book, Love and Math. It was a great read about the mathematics itself, and also his troubles as a Jewish academic in Soviet Russia. Love and Math: https://amzn.to/2qcqUb4
on “Robert Langlands, who linked number theory, analysis, and geometry (2015)” ↗I highly recommend reading Edward Frenkel's memoir, Love and Math, which is more or less an up close and personal popular account of the author's involvement with the Langlands Program: Perhaps the most remarkable part of the book though is the way it makes a serious…
on “Robert Langlands: The Greatest Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of?” ↗Yup. My thought as I read Love and Math a couple of months ago was "this would be great to give to a high school senior who is wondering whether to continue with mathematics." If you truly love doing math, you'll feel it when you read this…
on “Great books about mathematics” ↗For more stuff like this, check out Love and Math (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465050743/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... , disclaimer: affiliate link). It's a great book I'm just in the middle of that talks a little about doing maths and the mindset and heart…
on “Lessons from working 6 months on a math problem and failing” ↗Although the Luzin affair is more serious, the institutional problems with Soviety math remained at least up to the '80s; Edward Frenkel's recent book Love and Math: The Heart of a Hidden Reality discusses the anti-Semitism that kept him and other Jews from top schools and positions. In his case, the opening and then crumbling of the Soviet Union got him out, but…
on “The Tragedy of Mathematics In Russia” ↗Also the book from Frenkel where this comes from (Love and Math: The heart of hidden reality) is completely awesome, a motivator for doing maths proffesionally, and with the strange ability to distill without distort modern math work (of his mainly) and transmit their…
on “How a mathematician constructed a decision tree to solve a medical problem” ↗Love and Math - Edward Frenkel A very powerful book, both for its insights into incredible symmetries across all fields of mathematics (touching on QM and fields), and for the appeal to a positive and engaging attitude…
on “Ask HN: What book are you reading?” ↗Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality - by Edward Frenkel http://www.amazon.com/Love-Math-Heart-Hidden-Reality/dp/0465... Such a great book for people who love math. The end of the book gets a little bit hairy…
on “Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?” ↗Wow, this actually looks really great. I just got through reading Edward Frenkel's book "Love and Math", which was excellent up until he started to make claims about how mathematics would save the world, triumph of objectivism, etc. etc. And just prior to this he wafts over Godel without even mentioning…
on “The Scientist as Rebel” ↗I would recommend this book for more on the Langlands program: "Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality" by Edward Frenkel.
on “The Oracle of Arithmetic” ↗I would also recommend the book by Edward Frenkel, "Love and Math" where he talks about his involvement in the Langland program. Also, he has a very cool lecture on the subject here: "What Do Fermat's Last Theorem and Electro-magnetic Duality Have in Common?" http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/bblunch/frenkel/
on “The enigmatic complexity of number theory” ↗The book of Frenkel (the guy of the photo), Love and Math, is one way to go from zeto to not being 100% clueless about the Langlands program, and enjoy the time at the same time. Very likable.
on “Robert Langlands, who linked number theory, analysis, and geometry (2015)” ↗