

Marcus du Sautoy: Without maths we’re lost in a dark labyrinth - alexjmann
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6932402.ece

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jgrahamc
I've always been disappointed by du Sautoy's TV programs and writing. They
always seem completely unengaging. In this article he writes:

"Messiaen consciously exploited the asynchronicity of the prime numbers 17 and
29 to create a sense of timelessness in the Quartet for the End of Time. In
another piece, Île de Feu, I cannot believe he was aware that the two twelve-
note sequences he uses are the basis for generating one of the strangest
symmetrical objects discovered by mathematicians in our mathematical journey
through symmetry."

It's very poor to mention someone without helping the reader a little. I was
not aware of Messiaen and had to look him up. And then he doesn't explain what
he means leaving a non-mathematical reader confronted with sort of math-babble
that is off putting.

Would it have killed him to explain "synchronicity of the prime numbers 17 and
29". What he means is that there are two sequences of notes 17 and 29 notes
long in the piece. They start at the same moment but they don't 'meet again'
(starting at the same note) until 17 x 29 repetitions later.

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gb
Perhaps he assumed people would know who Messiaen was, given that he's one of
the better known modern/contemporary composers of the 20th century (that
sounds consecending, but I don't mean it to be).

I agree with your general point though, in particular I wish he'd be a bit
more specific when talking about these examples of mystical beauty he finds so
appealing in mathematics.

Unfortunately, as some of the other commentators have mentioned I can see why
that kind of thing might be cut by editors - my parents watched the series he
presented a while back, and sort-of gave up by the time the last programme was
on, saying they didn't really understand a lot of it. Then again, maybe that's
the problem! If he explained a bit more instead of briefly touching on the
more complicated areas then perhaps they would have followed it better.

~~~
jgrahamc
I have a pretty deep knowledge of mathematics and I watched those programs as
well with my SO (who is not mathematical). We gave up watching them because I
was able to understand what he was getting at because of my education and she
wasn't because he was so unclear. I think it was a pretty poor effort.

There are some lovely bits of mathematics (such as Cantor's diagonalization
argument) that could be explained to most people with patience and enthusiasm.

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stiff
On a related note, "On The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics":

[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Hamming.htm...](http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Hamming.html)

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stevek
It always amuses me to hear talk of this wonderful universal language of
mathematics.

On a certain level, it's true but in each field of mathematics there are many
notational differences. Not quite whole new languages but certainly heavily
accented dialects.

True, things are improving - at times different people in the same field would
use completely different notation for the same things!

