Is God a Mathematician?

Is God a Mathematician? is the title of a new book by Mario Livio. I was just reading a review of this book in the February issue of First Things when a student who works at NIST sent me a note that he had heard Livio give a talk there. He encouraged me to attend Livio's talk at the University of Maryland, which was held late on Friday afternoon, January 30, at one of the large physics lecture halls. There was someone there selling Livio's book.

So I did attend the first half of it (before I went home for dinner). Interestingly, the review that I had read gave me an excellent preview, for Livio started by stating that the title question is more important than the answer. Then he mentioned some highlights in the history of mathematics, including Kepler, Newton, Kelvin's knots, and Penrose's three worlds (physical, mental, and mathematical; described in Shadows of the Mind). He discussed the question of whether mathematics is invention or discovery, Plato, Archimedes (the world's first applied mathematician), Galileo, and Descartes.