asymptotes

Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh FAITH is reasonable, while science, to some extent, is founded on faith. These are two conclusions I made after pondering the relationship between faith and science. It was a "mathematical novel" I read recently that influenced me to undertake the exercise. The book, titled "Fermat's Enigma," was written by Simon Singh, a Ph.D. in particle physics at the University of Cambridge. It tells of the epic quest to solve Fermat's Last Theorem, regarded as the greatest mathematical problem of all times. I could say that the exercise led me to some rather startling discoveries. (Click here for a  brief explanation on Fermat's Last Theorem ) First, not everything in science has a proof. In fact, the whole of math, an abstract branch of science, is founded on statements that are so fundamental that they do not have proofs! These statements, called axioms, are either self-evidently true or else are assumed to be true. Perso...

Fermat's Last Theorem (FLT) is perhaps the most famous mathematical puzzle of all time. It was formulated as a conjecture by Pierre de Fermat in 1637 and was only proven in 1995 by Andrew Wiles. FLT states that no three positive integers  a ,  b , and  c  can satisfy the equation  a n  +  b n  =  c n    [1] for any integer value of  n  greater than 2. A very interesting fact about FLT is how Fermat introduced it to the world. He wrote the following on the margin of the book Arithmetica : I have discovered a truly marvelous proof that it is impossible to separate a cube into two cubes, or a fourth power into two fourth powers, or in general, any power higher than the second into two like powers. This margin is too narrow to contain it. With this seemingly casual and yet bold statement, Fermat issued a challenge to the great mathematical minds of his time (which included Blaise Pascal) and of the three cen...

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In a previous blog post, I have posed the question " Has Stephen Hawking Killed God? "  and have answered it with an emphatic  “ No! ”.  In this follow up post, I discuss the appropriateness of Hawking’s choice of title and subtitle for his book. I would like to suggest to Hawking that he change the title of his book “T he Grand Design ”  because it betrays the book’s grand claim- the irrelevance of God in creation.  If he really wanted to take God out of the creation picture, he should not have associated the word “design” with his book, because this word implies “purpose” and “intelligence”.  And an idea as big and complex as creation would call for a Great Purpose and a Great Intelligence, thus reminding many of a Great Being.  He should have, instead, called his book “ The Grand Chance ” or “ The Grand Coincidenc e” because he suggests that human life is a product of mere chance. I also suggest that he change the subtitle of his b...

Stephen Hawking argues that God is not needed for creation in his new book, “ The Grand Design ” (co-authored with Lleonard Mlodinow). He writes, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” Has Hawking killed God? No, I certainly do not think so. Hawking explains that “because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” but he does not explain why there is gravity in the first place. He argues that “spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing” but he does not give a reason why spontaneous creation should necessarily happen. His axiomatic acceptance of the law of gravity and spontaneous creation seems to me as dogmatic as a theist’s acceptance of the...