Book review: Pleasure in numbers

Book: The Number Mysteries: The Mathematical Odyssey Through Every Day Life
Author: Marcus du Sautoy
Fourth Estate
304 pages
Rs350

Ever wondered about the maths in Kama Sutra? Marcus du Sautoy  says there are  403,291,461,126,605,635,583,999,999 ways of doing it. No, no! Not sex positions, but encryptions. If lovers exchange coded messages which only they, and no one else, can read, and if they use the English alphabet which has 26 letters, then there are over four hundred million billion billion ways of encoding. A maths freak seduced by the Kama Sutra chapter on secret writing will tell the spouse “I have a headache”, and rush to the computer to chase numbers.

This sexy thought brings to mind Marilyn Monroe, the only human immortalised by numbers — 36-24-36. But 24 and 36 are not particularly interesting numbers; they can be divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6. If Marilyn had been 41-23-43, she would have figured on the covers of maths books as a prime model. 23, 41 and 43 cannot be divided by any other numbers. Such indivisible numbers are called primes. Julius Caesar is a prime case; he was assassinated by being stabbed in the back 23 times.

Marcus du Sautoy travels across space and time and illustrates the history of the evolution of numbers with fascinating stories. He presents five number mysteries. The solution to each mystery fetches a prize of one million dollars offered by American businessman Landon Clay (see  www.claymath.org/).

But mathematicians can be crazy. Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman, who solved one problem, refused the one million dollars and other honours. For him, the prize wasn’t money but the solving of one of the biggest problems in the history of mathematics.

Archimedes was another maths nut. Even when he was in the bath he would draw geometrical figures on his oiled body. He was so busy drawing diagrams that he was unaware his city of Syracuse was being attacked by Romans.

When a Roman soldier burst into his room with sword brandished, Archimedes pleaded to let him finish his calculations. But the soldier wasn’t prepared to wait for the QED, and hacked him down. Archimedes was the first mathematical assassination. Since then religious or ideological fanatics have killed several mathematicians. Hypatia of ancient Alexandria was an unusual woman for her times. She was a philosopher, scientist and mathematician. She was dragged from her chariot, stripped naked and beaten to death by Christian fanatics. Many others must have died in the concentration camps of Hitler and Stalin.

Marcus du Sautoy tells the story of maths by asking questions and giving answers. At the end of each chapter is presented the ultimate problem, solving which fetches a million-dollar prize.

Here are some of his questions: Why did Beckham choose the 23 shirt? How are the primes 17 and 29 the keys to the end of time? How long would it take to write a list of all the primes? Could rabbits and sunflowers be used to find primes? How to write a number with 12,978,189 digits? Why are bubbles spherical? How to make the world’s roundest football? Why does a snowflake have six arms? What do lightning, broccoli and the stock market have in common?; How to see in four dimensions? What shape is the universe? Why does a boomerang come back? How can a butterfly kill thousands of people? Is it possible to predict the future?

As you read the book you come up with your own questions and wonder what the answers could be. When I was reading about prime numbers my thoughts turned to Marilyn Monroe’s statistics. Reading about elusive shapes provoked these questions. Why has Nature given most creatures two eyes? Why not 1 or 3 or 5?

If, like Lord Shiva, humans had three eyes, how would the universe appear to us? If, instead of being placed horizontally, our eyes were vertical, that is, one on top of the other, then how would we see spatial geometry? Why has nature restricted human vision to the VIBGYOR range? If eyesight were extended a little into the infrared and ultraviolet, how multi-coloured would our vision be? If the future were predictable, would civilisations be bored to death? Many such questions pop up.

Marcus du Sautoy’s book cannot be read in one sitting and put away. You go back to it again and again. You are trapped in an Obsessive Compulsive Mathematics Disorder. You see maths in everything. Besides, you have to visit all the websites that du Sautoy suggests.

So, have fun. And aspire to win a million-dollar prize. I hope the book provokes Indian business houses to offer large prizes for solving complex Indian mysteries, not just in mathematics.

Dilip Raote is a senior journalist