Loving and Hating Mathematics: Challenging the Myths of Mathematical Life
“Love and hate,” declared the eighteenth-century mathematician Johann Lambert, “ . . . must have no place . . . in geometry.” Hersh and John-Steiner think otherwise, arguing that, in emotions and the social relations that generate them, we see the motives impelling mathematicians to do their work and the context allowing them to apply it. The authors accordingly focus not on impersonal numbers and calculations but rather on the human feelings and friendships, the animosities and affections, of those probing the numbers. Readers see how Pascal found both physical and spiritual solace while contemplating the cycloid, how Massera forged sustaining emotional bonds with other political prisoners by joining them in discussions of mathematical logic, and how Kaczynski followed a chain of deductive theorems into murder. Readers examine up close the tangled emotions that harden into prejudice across generational and gender lines, considering in particular the hard career of algebraist Emily Noether, who surmounted bias only through exceptional resolve. A book rescuing the full humanity of mathematicians from misleading stereotypes. --Bryce Christensen