Human ways of perceiving the universe

The productive and engaging physicist John Barrow concluded an essay on mathematics punningly entitled “Counter Culture” with the following paragraph.
. . . the world might seem to be nothing but a display of mindless mathematical order. Indeed, you can be a dehumanist if you choose. A work of Rembrandt or Miro, of Mozart or [...]

Hamilton’s inspiration

Sir William Rowan Hamilton was “unquestionably Ireland’s greatest man of science” in the opinion of Stuart Hollingdale, author of Makers of Mathematics (Penguin, 1989). Bearing in mind recent posts on this blog and elsewhere about creativity in mathematics, I think one of Hollingdale’s paragraphs is illuminating
Hamilton regarded his discovery of quarternions, after a gestation period [...]

A move from Vox

Posts older than this one were imported to WordPress from Vox.

Creativity in mathematics and science

The video in my last post, and Christopher Richards’s blog from which I nicked it, have really got me thinking about creativity, inspiration, and analytical thinking. My own creativity is woeful and worsening. Is this a common feeling amongst adults? Why do most of us stop painting as we grow up? Is it because we [...]

Creativity

One of the most wonderful and stirring short speeches you are ever likely to hear on the subject of reforming our flawed educational systems in favour of rewarding creativity was given by Sir Ken Robinson at a TED conference. I came across this video at the new Creativity? blog of Christopher Richards, he of slowdownnow.org [...]