Is Love Simply a Mathematical Equation?

[masters1]

The only reason I don’t know more about love is because there just isn’t more to know. In fact, I’ve reduced love to a mathematical formula. "Let X be a non-singular complex projective manifold. Then every Hodge class on X is a linear combination with rational coefficients of the cohomology classes of complex subvarieties of X."

Actually, that’s not right. That’s the statement piece of the Hodge conjecture, but I’m sure you already knew that.

 

[topsquark]

I will find the love of my life as soon as I can find a woman that can use the word "orthogonal" in casual conversation.

-Dan

 

[Joppy]

I will find the love of my life as soon as I can find a woman that can use the word "orthogonal" in casual conversation.

-Dan

That's hilarious.

 

[Joppy]

This makes me want to ask what everyone thinks about Edward Frenkels love and math shenanigans. As i know, he is an exceptional mathematician, but he seems to really have a thing to say about Love and Math. What do you think?

 

[MarkFL]

This makes me want to ask what everyone thinks about Edward Frenkels love and math shenanigans. As i know, he is an exceptional mathematician, but he seems to really have a thing to say about Love and Math. What do you think?

Love is something for neuroscientists to address, who are applied chemists, who are applied physicists, who are applied mathematicians...so I think mathematicians really don't have much to say about love at this point. :D

 

[Joppy]

Love is something for neuroscientists to address, who are applied chemists, who are applied physicists, who are applied mathematicians...so I think pure mathematicians really don't have much to say about love at this point. :D

Haha yes. Good point. Agree.

 

[topsquark]

Love is something for neuroscientists to address, who are applied chemists, who are applied physicists, who are applied mathematicians...so I think mathematicians really don't have much to say about love at this point. :D

Hey! I'm a theorist. Nothing I do can be applied!

-Dan

 

[Ackbach]

This makes me want to ask what everyone thinks about Edward Frenkel's love and math shenanigans. As I know, he is an exceptional mathematician, but he seems to really have a thing to say about Love and Math. What do you think?

I've read that book. I'm currently re-reading it, in fact. I thought it was tremendously good. It's not really about romantic love, but much more about a love for mathematics - mathematics in all its glorious beauty. I read the book for the first time right after reading The Art of Mathematics, by Jerry P. King, another fantastic book I would recommend to anyone. It's rare to find articulate mathematicians willing to write about mathematics. Most of them are too busy actually doing mathematics. But it is good for the layman to understand why mathematicians do what they do (as King wrote, it is for aesthetic reasons, and Frenkel would definitely agree).

 

[Joppy]

I've read that book. I'm currently re-reading it, in fact. I thought it was tremendously good. It's not really about romantic love, but much more about a love for mathematics - mathematics in all its glorious beauty.

I totally agree. One of the reasons i really enjoyed the book is due to the way Frenkel has written it. In my eyes, the book is simultaneously a bibliography of Frenkels life, and also filled with fairly detailed mathematical discovery.

It's great to be able to read another persons life account, along with the mathematics that they and those around them discovered.

And yes, it is not until the final chapters that love is mentioned in a more 'mysterious' sort of way. In fact the book never gave me the impression that it was about romantic love, it is only Frenkels appearance in videos online that gave me that lead me to that.

I read the book for the first time right after reading The Art of Mathematics, by Jerry P. King, another fantastic book I would recommend to anyone.

Thank you for this recommendation.

It's rare to find articulate mathematicians willing to write about mathematics. Most of them are too busy actually doing mathematics. But it is good for the layman to understand why mathematicians do what they do (as King wrote, it is for aesthetic reasons, and Frenkel would definitely agree).

This is coherent with G. H. Hardy's opening words in A Mathematician's Apology,

It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to
find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a
mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add
to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians
have done.

 

[Monoxdifly]

I thought the love equation was $$r=a(1-sin\theta)$$

 

[Joppy]

I've read that book. I'm currently re-reading it, in fact. I thought it was tremendously good. It's not really about romantic love, but much more about a love for mathematics - mathematics in all its glorious beauty. I read the book for the first time right after reading The Art of Mathematics, by Jerry P. King, another fantastic book I would recommend to anyone. It's rare to find articulate mathematicians willing to write about mathematics. Most of them are too busy actually doing mathematics. But it is good for the layman to understand why mathematicians do what they do (as King wrote, it is for aesthetic reasons, and Frenkel would definitely agree).

Thanks again for this recommendation. I purchased it online as i read your post, it arrived this week and i just finished it. A good book indeed.

Its made me realize how important it is to read expository material on ones field of interest. I even think that undergraduates would benefit greatly from reading such material, enabling them to understand what their major is actually about (not just expositions on math, but other subjects too).