Love and Math Reviewed by NY Times

John Young jya at pipeline.com
Sat Oct 26 07:24:26 PDT 2013


Love and Math, by Edward Frenkel, is reviewed in tomorrow's
NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/books/review/love-and-math-by-edward-frenkel.html

Excerpt:

"Frenkel believes math deserves to be an integral part of our
culture. Why is every­one talking about planets, atoms and
DNA and not symmetry groups? For one thing, you can’t
get cancer from a mutation of a symmetry group. But
Frenkel writes that math 'directs the flow of the universe.'
It’s as elegant as music and as much a part of our
intellectual heritage as literature. He strives to awaken
our wonder by taking us on an equation-packed tour of
his research, in which he reveals a “hidden” world few
of us encountered in school."

Returning to Whit Diffie musing on what led to his discovery
or invention of public key cryptography -- found in what might
be termed a hidden world of mathematics -- there may be
still hidden mathematical forms of communication that
does not rely upon technology's inevitable comsec failure.

The NSA global invasion appears almost wholly based on the
failure of technology rather than mathematics, as our esteemed
cryptographers remind. Much of the current tweaking and
further invention appear driven by technology, code,
engineering, politics, law and polemics, again not mathematics.

No wonder, that, for math is beyond grasp of those who
believe the non-mathematical is too hard to see, hear, smell,
touch, write, understand, market and melodramatically
induce media delirium by way of officially-hostile and
unauthorized disclosures.

Whither the NSA bountiful mathematicians in protecting
its family jewels of invasive technology? Stuck in crypto
labs musing like Diffies in manifold hideways?

Frenkel's linking of love and mathematics is worth pondering
in the face of the megalomania, demogoguery, popularity and
profitability of faultly technology, ever breeding abuse, counter
abuse, blame and exculpation, feeding the market for official
joined to unofficial invasion and combat, collateral damage
inevitable.






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