Read The Mathematician’s Shiva for Free Online Page A

insight to identify what was
worth solving
in mathematics. He laid a road map for the work of future mathematicians that is still used today.
    Even I, a mere user of mathematics, am under Hilbert’s influence. Every student who wishes to understand the mathematics behind physical processes still passes through him or, more precisely, through Hilbert and his student Courant’s textbook,
Methods of Mathematical Physics
. A textbook that is still useful ninety years after it is first published is unheard of. Yet I have Courant and Hilbert’s textbook on my shelf. My students have this textbook on their shelves. My mother also had it, in the original German, on hers.
    I open up this textbook now, dear reader. It’s been decades since I’ve looked at even one page. The book is made of the good stuff: a sewn binding, thick acid-free paper, and a utilitarian gray canvas cloth cover with black-and-red lettering. It isn’t an inviting text. Instead its appearance says “I know I’m important. Who the hell are you?”
    I open a page at random, read the words, and look at the equations. Oh my, I had to struggle mightily to comprehend this material, but it was well worth the effort. It changed how I thought about math forever. I fully understood, in a way that I previously knew only vaguely, that math was about the ability to transform symbolism into palpable mental images. This is what my father had been trying to teach me when I was young. This is where genius lay. Hilbert had this ability. Whoever has the best visceral understanding of what seems to most to be abstract and obtuse wins in the battle to solve seemingly impossible mathematical problems.
    For example, consider this equation, a formula that guides me in virtually everything I study:

    Yes, OK, reader, I know you are probably sweating almost instantly at the sight of such a thing. You are thinking perhaps, “Why does this author show us such opaque symbolism? Forget this book by this middle-aged man raised by eccentric mathematicians (as if there are any other kind). One of his parents is already dead in this story and she was probably the most interesting character of the lot.”
    Why am I making your life difficult? Because while maybe math is shit to you, it isn’t to me, and it wasn’t to my mother or father. It is like breathing to us, and to ignore math in this story would be akin to listening to Frank Zappa without ever having taken hallucinogens, an incomplete experience.
    Dear reader, don’t panic. Newton was barely past twenty when he invented calculus. It’s pure adolescent whimsy at work. Think of the language of mathematics as shorthand that has been around for centuries, the equivalent of teenage texting, but for geeks. Yes, I know you don’t know half the text abbreviations that your teenage children use, but you can figure out their argot if pressed, can you not? You can figure out this one as well.
    As my father noted to the priest at the hospital, I study the movement of air and water in our atmosphere. To study it, I fly into hurricanes and make measurements, which actually isn’t as dangerous as it sounds. It’s certainly less harrowing than experiencing the full blast of a hurricane on land.
    The equation above has a name, it’s so famous: Navier-Stokes. People like me routinely use this equation to describe the chaotic motion of air and water like that found in hurricanes. You’ve seen videos and pictures of such natural calamities, no doubt. Perhaps—and this would be unfortunate—you’ve experienced such danger firsthand.
    Let’s say we have a hurricane and we want to make some predictions as to where this horrible thing will move and how nasty its winds will be. If you live near a coastline, you, no doubt, would love to have such a prediction. Right now, unfortunately, I can say with complete certainty that I will never be able to provide one, although perhaps the students of the students of my students will be successful. Right