Pure maths and the natural world

The book adheres closely to the popular science principle Stephen Hawking articulated in avoiding equations and formulae in A Brief History of Time

The Big Bang of Numbers: How to build the universe using only maths

Author: Manil Suri

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 384

Price: Rs 699

Starting from scratch can you derive an entire, internally consistent, logical edifice of mathematics? Moreover, can you use that mathematics to “design” the universe, with its mind-bogglingly complex combination of physics, chemistry and biology?

In practice, of course, mathematics was derived from a combination of empiricism and applied logic. People saw things; counted them; measured them; and discovered deeper patterns and principles as they went along.

But the actual historical underpinnings haven’t stopped sundry mathematicians, logicians and philosophers from performing the ambitious thought experiment