The baking bread section suggests that in any area of human activity there is neither "invention nor discovery" but a "complex context-dependent mix of both." Ian Stewart compares the technique of baking bread to mathematics, the ingredients- or in another sense the basic number skills, once you have ditermined and made assumptions , then everything "flows" and is "predetermined'.
He later goes on to argue that math in a universe makes abstact sense. Hence since the abstraction came out of reality , it's no surprise if it applies to reality.
- generalising theories help it to apply to differential equations and suddenly you find applications again, but to dynamics, not to bakery.
The authors use of rhetorical questions "what is medicine?" "where does it live?" "is it invented or discovered?' has a persuasive element, as the reader wonders the posibilities of the answer.
Lottery Illusion
- mathematical patterns are evident in nature and biology, for example the number of petals on a flower are part of the "fibonancii numbers"
- seeking out mathematical patterns is biologically innate in us, as Stewart calims our minds havr a dendency to seet out these.
- this "natural" ability has led to the discovery of Newton's law of gravity and the equations of quantum mechanics in additon theres astrology and the great Pyramid's, which examplify the accuracy and measurements, human kind could achieve.
- Although, what mathematics tells us about choosing lottery nubmers is that any patterns we think we see are illusions.
- He then asks the reader how does our mind develop this tendency for pattern seeking.
- Mathematics is our way of understanding ceartain features of nature.
- It is in our brain to think mathematically
- Only Geometer God can create beins able to come up with geometery.
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