This book takes us through the formulation of the theorems in “On Landau damping” by Clément Mouhot and Cédric Villani.
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(May 2015) Birth of a Theorem: A Mathematical Adventure (5 stars)Ī gem: how to go from the abstract to the abstract in a playful way. And truly sophisticated: Nobody but Peter Tanous would have imagined to cross James Bond with a Catholic priest.” I even read some of it during elevator rides, not being able to resist. Masterly! This is the page turner par excellence every new page brings some surprise and it was impossible for me to put the book down. (April 2016) The Secret of Fatima (5 Stars) Finally, many of the people involved are actually known either personally (Feynman, Mandelbrot, Minsky), or like Boole, Ramanujan, Godel, and Lebnitz, “connect” to the author.
Otherwise he would not bother mentioning him. Indeed, if Mandelbrot hated someone, the person has to be good and threatening. He shows a fair –even adulatory– portrait of Mandelbrot, in spite of attacks by the latter. The book is about this refreshing perspective: theorems were to Ramanujan a thing used by European mathematicians to convince other European mathematicians. Mathematica allowed me to be a car mechanic who looked under the hood such experience makes us look at the pompous theoretician as a cook would a nerdy chemist. As an eyewitness, I spent almost all my career in quant finance and probability toying with Mathematica (Stephen Wolfram’s invention), and saw it accumulate special functions and tools. Thus he depicts Ramanujan, not with the usual mathematical prism of the theorem crowds, but as someone who, starting with intuitions, does experiments till a mathematical identity feels right. Secondo, Wolfram is the developer of a new way to do (useful) mathematics, an entirely new method, which allows us to tinker with mathematics, something that is an anathema to purists. Primo, Wolfram deserves to be in the book as an “idea maker”, in his own right. It is the real thing on several accounts. This book, “Idea Makers”, is written from an insider. This fellow “was the best…”, this fellow “was the first to…”, “Einstein made a big blunder”, etc. The descriptions focus on “interesting” traits of the personalities scientists are discussed as if they were partaking of spectator sports. They are well written, which masks the BS. Their books are like reviews of comparative squid ink recipes written by anorexics, or descriptions of the Loire Valley by visually impaired travel writers. The general public is usually supplied by books on mathematical scientists written by “science communicators” and other outside observers–the worst by far being the academic historians of science. (July 2016) Idea Makers: Personal Perspectives on the Lives & Ideas of Some Notable People This book should be mandatory reading to every student and practitioner of foreign affairs. It was high time that somebody in international affairs has approached the problem of “iatrogenics”, i.e. Puri, as an insider, outlines the principles and legal mechanisms, then runs through the events of the past few years since the Iraq invasion each one of his chapters are models of concision, presenting the story of Ukraine, Syria, Lybia, and Yemen, among others, as standalone briefings to the uninitiated. These interventions trigger endless chains of unintended consequences –consequences for the victims, but none for the interventionistas, allowing them to repeat the mistake again and again. It documents how people find arguments couched in moralistic terms to intervene in complex systems they don’t understand. This is an outstanding book on the side effects of interventionism, written in extremely elegant prose and with maximal clarity. Solid Book on Interventionism, Should be Mandatory Reading in Foreign Affairs. (Jan 2017) Perilous Interventions: The Security Council and the Politics of Chaos