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A spirited, metaphysical exploration into math's deepest mysteries and conundrums at the crux of middle age.
Decades after struggling to understand math as a boy, Alec Wilkinson decides to embark on a journey to learn it as a middle-aged man. What begins as a personal challenge, and it's challenging, soon transforms into something greater than a belabored effort to learn math. Despite his incompetence, Wilkinson encounters a universe of unexpected mysteries in his pursuit of mathematical knowledge and quickly becomes fascinated, soon, his exercise in personal growth (and torture) morphs into an intellectually expansive exploration.
In “A Divine Language”, Wilkinson, a contributor to The New Yorker for over forty years, journeys into the heart of the divine aspect of mathematics- its mysteries, challenges, and revelations- since antiquity. As he submits himself to the lure of deep mathematics, he takes the reader through his investigations into the subject's big questions, number theory and the creation of numbers, the debate over math's human or otherworldly origins, problems and equations that remain unsolved after centuries, the conundrum of prime numbers. Writing with warm humor and sharp observation as he traverses practical math's endless frustrations and rewards, Wilkinson provides an awe-inspiring account of an adventure from a land of strange sights. Part memoir, part metaphysical travel book, and part journey in self-improvement, A Divine Language is one man's second attempt at understanding the numbers in front of him, and the world beyond.
Decades after struggling to understand math as a boy, Alec Wilkinson decides to embark on a journey to learn it as a middle-aged man. What begins as a personal challenge, and it's challenging, soon transforms into something greater than a belabored effort to learn math. Despite his incompetence, Wilkinson encounters a universe of unexpected mysteries in his pursuit of mathematical knowledge and quickly becomes fascinated, soon, his exercise in personal growth (and torture) morphs into an intellectually expansive exploration.
In “A Divine Language”, Wilkinson, a contributor to The New Yorker for over forty years, journeys into the heart of the divine aspect of mathematics- its mysteries, challenges, and revelations- since antiquity. As he submits himself to the lure of deep mathematics, he takes the reader through his investigations into the subject's big questions, number theory and the creation of numbers, the debate over math's human or otherworldly origins, problems and equations that remain unsolved after centuries, the conundrum of prime numbers. Writing with warm humor and sharp observation as he traverses practical math's endless frustrations and rewards, Wilkinson provides an awe-inspiring account of an adventure from a land of strange sights. Part memoir, part metaphysical travel book, and part journey in self-improvement, A Divine Language is one man's second attempt at understanding the numbers in front of him, and the world beyond.
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Reviews
"Keen-eyed, beguiling . . . Wilkinson is a beautiful writer, a dry wit who seamlessly blends complex ideas with jazzy anecdotes and the history of math itself . . . His book demystifies math, illuminating the godlike, immutable properties of proofs and the ways numbers evolve, like animal species. For readers craving high style during the dog days, A Divine Language is simply divine."
Hamilton Cain, StarTribune (Minnesota)
"[Wilkinson's] capacious curiosity leads him to roam far and wide through the discipline's history and philosophy . . . Mr. Wilkinson is entirely in his element, telling tales with his easily acquired, elegant erudition."
Siobhan Roberts, The Wall Street Journal