COMMENT | Mathematics and society: A conversation with Wong Tian An

COMMENT | A friend once mentioned that the film The Man Who Knew Infinity was one of the most accurate depictions of mathematicians he had seen, specifically in terms of the way it showed them thinking and working away.

This was perhaps not surprising, given that the mathematician Ken Ono served as its consultant. It was based on the life of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, whose poetic and intuitive understanding of mathematics posed some difficulties for his mentor GH Hardy who was forced to insist on the necessary demonstration of written proof.

This was in addition to other themes, such as colonialism and religion, which made for a rich film to dissect and ponder.

Ramanujan’s intuitive approach, however, is not necessarily unorthodox. Iain Stewart writes about the absence of a universal “mathematical mind”, recognising that mathematicians do not necessarily “proceed one logical step at a time; only the polished proofs of their results do that”.

Mental imagery and creative thinking is as much a part of the process as the necessary symbolic calculation and rigorous logic. They add to a historic body of work, which Stewart describes as such: “There is an unbroken line of mathematical thought that goes all the way back from tomorrow to Babylon.”

How then may mathematics be reconciled with general society?...