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Mathematics for Human Flourishing

por Francis Su, Christopher Jackson

MiembrosReseñasPopularidadValoración promediaMenciones
1285211,970 (4.68)5
"For mathematician Francis Su, a society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity’s most beautiful ideas.In this profound book, written for a wide audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award?winning mathematician and educator weaves parables, puzzles, and personal reflections to show how mathematics meets basic human desires—such as for play, beauty, freedom, justice, and love—and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. These desires and virtues, and the stories told here, reveal how mathematics is intimately tied to being human. Some lessons emerge from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother’s, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Christopher’s letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can—and must—be open to all." -- Publisher's description.… (más)
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Mostrando 5 de 5
Excellent discussion and treatment of the theme. Honest and charitable. A model for Christian public engagement. Virtue approach helps a lot.

A bit too defensive in tone in places; you can hear apologizing rather than apologetics. Careful distinctions of terms and categories except in one minor case. Not even a mathematician can define systemic accusations convincingly. The appeal to generalities in that case is telling.

But overall very helpful and inspiring and helpful even beyond its field. ( )
  pledman | Jun 7, 2022 |
Powerful, moving, brilliant! ( )
1 vota rri | Feb 14, 2021 |
Does mathematics have eudaemonistic value? Su certainly thinks so, defining the discipline as "the science of patterns nd the art of engaging the meaning of those patterns." His chapters are entitled Flourishing, Exploration, Meaning, Play, Beauty, Permanence, Truth, Struggle, Power, Justice, Freedom, Community, and Love. They should be easily readable and enjoyable for almost anyone. A number of good mathematical puzzles are included.
  fpagan | Oct 8, 2020 |
There are moments in one’s reading life where one come across an unexpected book which gives one pleasure in absorbing the text and revelation in ruminating about the message. This was my feeling after I finished Mathematics for Human Flourishing by Frances Su.

This is a book that I discovered when I saw Thomas Lin, the editor of Quanta Magazine touting it on Twitter. Being curious and being as that the author gave me a code which gave me 25% off on the purchase of the book, I jumped at the chance.

It was one the best chance that I have ever taken.

Professor Su is a mathematician at Harvey Mudd College in California. He was also the President of the mathematical Association of America; this book came out of an address that he made in 2014 as the president of MAA. I have not read the address, but I have read the book and the book is an amazing amalgam of intellectual wonderings about life and what humans hold to be noble and mathematics of course. The author asks question, many questions. Illuminating questions that is much beyond quick and facile answers. He also lays himself out honestly and courageously, sharing with the readers his quest to becoming a mathematician, on his insecurities about growing up Asian in the United States, his feelings about being in an over achieving family culture, and working in an art form that America does not appreciate or value. He also introduces his friend Christopher Jackson, an inmate in the penal law system of Georgia. Chris had committed a crime when he was very young, aged 19, and he's has been in the penal system for what he had done. While he was in prison he also started to dabble in mathematics, soon discovering that he a passion for mathematics and also that he was adept at mathematics, enough to be a researcher, per Prof. Su’s estimation. Prof. Su shared some of his correspondence with Chris Jackson. The correspondences were about math, but also about many things beyond math, which helped illustrate the main thesis of the exposition.

Prof. Su chose thirteen concepts, words, and ideas to delineate his feelings about mathematics. He uses them to dive deeply into the ideas that mathematics enhances and improves, he uses these concepts to expound on what it means for him to be doing mathematics. The structure of the book is completely non-traditional, and it is breathtaking in its scope.

The central tenet of the book of course is laid out in the title: Mathematics for Human Flourishing. The author’s thesis is that mathematics is the path towards making humans flourish in their reality, to give us humans a path towards reaching realms that are beyond our initially meager imaginations, that doing math is not just a task or chore or a talent but a necessary spiritual practice to advance our society, to feed our naturally fecund imaginations, to sate our very human yearning for meaning in this life and in this world.

This thesis a giant leap for those who are math phobic, but it is a heroic declaration for those who are passionate about mathematics. Professor Su does yeoman’s work in using those concepts to illuminate his thesis: flourishing, exploration, meaning, play, beauty, permanence, truth, struggle, power, justice, freedom, community, and love to flesh out his argument that not only is mathematics a practical and beautiful practice, but it is also a critical necessity for human thriving in our internal lives. The doing of mathematics makes us better people, it makes us kinder, more patient, more cognizant of the world around us, it makes us more curious, it makes us learn that our world is more than just what we see in front of us.

Ever the detailed technician, Prof. Su carefully lists the virtues that comes through each of the concepts he chose to highlight in each chapter. He assiduously frames his chapters to clearly illustrate each of the virtues and connects them to each of the words he used to name the chapters. He also lists them all at the end of the book, to make sure the readers understood his point.
The completeness of his authorly duties does not end there, he provides discussion questions at the end, as well as hints and solutions to the puzzles he provides at the end of his chapters. He was very complete in pursuing his mission.

Unlike many of the books regarding mathematics, this one goes into the reasons why mathematicians become mathematicians, more importantly, the book amply demonstrates the point that mathematics is not only a magnificent art to pursue, it is also one that is desirable one to pursuit. This book is enlightening, inspirational, and gives hope to everyone who is willing to read it. ( )
  pw0327 | Feb 23, 2020 |
Summary: An argument for the value of mathematics in all of our lives through meeting our deep desires and cultivating virtues helping us and others to flourish.

I have to admit approaching this book with both fascination, and a bit of trepidation. I was curious for how the author would demonstrate that math fosters human flourishing. And I was afraid that the book would reveal the deficit in my rusty math skills, that it would be a discussion of inside baseball, with me on the outside, as it were.

Francis Su sets us at ease from the earliest pages. He introduces us to a correspondent friend, Christopher Jackson and to Simone Weil. Jackson is in prison for armed robbery, connected with drug addiction, who won't be released until 2033 at the earliest. Simone Weil was the younger sister of famed number theorist, André Weil. Simone Weil once said "Every being cries out to be read differently." As it turns out, Jackson runs circles around most of us in his knowledge of advanced subjects in mathematics, and Weil loved mathematics, and more than held her own with her brother's circle of friends.

Su's appeal in this book is that we read others, and perhaps ourselves differently when we think of mathematics. For too long, he contends, we have left math to the whiz kids who can solve problems quickly and the eccentrics. For many of us, math is either irrelevant or a memory of shame. He contends we are all mathematicians, and all teachers of math and invites us to read ourselves, others, and the practice of mathematics differently.

His contention is that mathematics fosters human flourishing. We flourish as we develop certain virtues, and our pursuit of virtues is aroused by basic desires or longings. Longings like that of exploration, such as how to explain the gaps in the rings of Saturn. Or the longing for meaning, such as the stories we may use to make sense of the Pythagorean theorem. There is play, particularly as we explore the interesting patterns we find in math, engaging in inductive inquiry, and deductive reasoning to explain what we find. We come up with shortcuts, and try to figure out why they work. We long for beauty, and discover it in the sensory beauty of a fractal, the wondrous beauty of an elegant equation, the insightful beauty of the dualities in math (multiplication and division, sine and cosine), and the transcendent beauty when we realize that math can explain the world. We long for permanence and truth and find these in mathematical ideas that do not change.

Math cultivates virtue as we struggle. Su gives the lie to the whiz kid who comes up with the quick solution. Real creativity in math involves struggle, the failed solutions that lead to a novel way of seeing the problem that yields the solution. Math's power may be coercive or creative. The creative use of power multiplies math's power in the lives of others rather than showing oneself to be powerful. Math can be used to include or exclude and may be a source of either justice or injustice. Math can be a source of freedom--particularly if it is coupled with justice and extend welcome to all. When this happens, mathematics creates good communities, not ones that exclude those who don't "measure up." Math sees everyone as capable of discovery in math. Suddenly, you have a group of people engaged in joyous discovery.

Above all, Su believes that love is the ultimate virtue in math as in all things. This is not merely the love of math, but the love of people that believes "that you and every person in your life can flourish in mathematics." One of the beauties of this book is that Su models this in the respectful way he engages Christopher's questions and desire to learn math. It is evident that he sought Christopher's advice on the book, and includes in each chapter one of Christopher's reflections. At the end of the epilogue, an interaction between the author and Christopher, Su mentions that Christopher will share in the book's royalties.

When you read this book, I suspect you will agree that Francis Su is the math teacher we all wish we had. He reminded me of one high school teacher, Mr. Erickson, who made math fun, and was not above engaging in dialogues with his invisible friend Harvey during class. Su helps us to discover the fun in math by including math puzzles in each chapter. He offers hints or solutions to each in the back, but I was reminded of the math puzzles I used to delight solving in Mr. Erickson's class, and as a kid. I found myself wanting to find some math books and brush up my math. He got me curious about the mathematical realities I could do well to pay more attention to, like trying to make sense out of the analytics on a website and what the patterns mean, or the correlation between voting percentages and incarceration patterns.

I wonder if others will have this reaction and if in fact that is the author's intent. Even teachers can lose their "first love" of math, and lose touch with the desires that math aroused in their lives. Might renewal come with remembering, remembering ourselves as we consider the student before us, allowing that remembering to shape how we teach? Su does us a valuable service in awakening us to the ways we flourish through math, motivating us to share with others the abundance we have discovered, even as Christopher now teaches other inmates the math he has learned, flourishing even more as he does so.

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own. ( )
  BobonBooks | Feb 6, 2020 |
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"For mathematician Francis Su, a society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity’s most beautiful ideas.In this profound book, written for a wide audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award?winning mathematician and educator weaves parables, puzzles, and personal reflections to show how mathematics meets basic human desires—such as for play, beauty, freedom, justice, and love—and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. These desires and virtues, and the stories told here, reveal how mathematics is intimately tied to being human. Some lessons emerge from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother’s, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Christopher’s letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can—and must—be open to all." -- Publisher's description.

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