This is a book on the relationship between mathematics and religious beliefs. This book shows that, throughout scientific history, mathematics has been used to make sense of the 'big' questions of life, and that religious beliefs sometimes drove mathematicians to do mathematics to help them make sense of the world

This illuminating history explores the complex relationship between mathematics, religious belief, and Victorian culture. Throughout history, application rather than abstraction has been the prominent driving force in mathematics. From the compass and sextant to partial differential equations, mathematical advances were spurred by the desire for better navigation tools, weaponry, and construction methods. But the religious upheaval in Victorian England and the fledgling United States opened the way for the rediscovery of pure mathematics, a tradition rooted in Ancient Greece. In Equations from God, Daniel J. Cohen captures the origins of the rebirth of abstract mathematics in the intellectual quest to rise above common existence and touch the mind of the deity. Using an array of published and private sources, Cohen shows how philosophers and mathematicians seized upon the beautiful simplicity inherent in mathematical laws to reconnect with the divine and traces the route by which the divinely inspired mathematics of the Victorian era begot later secular philosophies.

Is mathematics a discovery or an invention? Do numbers truly exist? What sort of reality do formulas describe? The complexity of mathematics - its abstract rules and obscure symbols - can seem very distant from the everyday. There are those things that are real and present, it is supposed, and then there are mathematical concepts: creations of our mind, mysterious tools for those unengaged with the world. Yet, from its most remote history and deepest purpose, mathematics has served not just as a way to understand and order, but also as a foundation for the reality it describes. In this elegant book, mathematician and philosopher Paolo Zellini offers a brief cultural and intellectual history of mathematics, ranging widely from the paradoxes of ancient Greece to the sacred altars of India, from Mesopotamian calculus to our own contemporary obsession with algorithms. Masterful and illuminating, The Mathematics of the Gods and the Algorithms of Men transforms our understanding of mathematical thinking, showing that it is inextricably linked with the philosophical and the religious as well as the mundane - and, indeed, with our own very human experience of the universe.

To open a newspaper or turn on the television it would appear that science and religion are polar opposites - mutually exclusive bedfellows competing for hearts and minds. There is little indication of the rich interaction between religion and science throughout history, much of which continues today. From ancient to modern times, mathematicians have played a key role in this interaction. This is a book on the relationship between mathematics and religious beliefs. It aims to show that, throughout scientific history, mathematics has been used to make sense of the 'big' questions of life, and that religious beliefs sometimes drove mathematicians to mathematics to help them make sense of the world. Containing contributions from a wide array of scholars in the fields of philosophy, history of science and history of mathematics, this book shows that the intersection between mathematics and theism is rich in both culture and character. Chapters cover a fascinating range of topics including the Sect of the Pythagoreans, Newton's views on the apocalypse, Charles Dodgson's Anglican faith and Gödel's proof of the existence of God.

According to the great mathematician Paul Erdös, God maintains perfect mathematical proofs in The Book. This book presents the authors candidates for such "perfect proofs," those which contain brilliant ideas, clever connections, and wonderful observations, bringing new insight and surprising perspectives to problems from number theory, geometry, analysis, combinatorics, and graph theory. As a result, this book will be fun reading for anyone with an interest in mathematics.

THE BIBLE IS THE MOST NUMERICALLY CONSTRUCTED BOOK IN THE WORLD. JUSTIN MARTYR (A.D. 160), IRENAEUS (A.D.180), CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (A.D. 195), TERULLIAN (A.D. 210), CYRIAN (A.D. 250), VICTORINUS (A.D. 280), METHODIUS (A.D. 290), AND MANY OTHER EARLY CHURCH MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS WROTE OF THE COMPLEX MATHEMATICAL DESIGNS IN SCRIPTURE THAT PROVED ONLY A MASTER MATHEMATICIAN COULD HAVE DIRECTED THIS NUMERICAL CONSTRUCTION. THE FACT THAT THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS OF THE BIBLE, WRITTEN OVER A PERIOD OF SIXTEEN HUNDRED YEARS BY FORTY OR MORE WRITERS, MOST NOT HAVING PRECEDING OR SUCCEEDING BOOKS, YET CONTINUING THE AMAZING MATHEMATICAL PATTERNS, PROVES THAT A MASTER MATHEMATICIAN WAS IN CHARGE. WHILE SOME BOOKS ON THIS SUBJECT DROWN THE READER WITH DRY STATISTICS, NOAH HUTCHINGS HAS WRITTEN ONE THAT IS EASY TO UNDERSTAND; ONE THAT WILL INCREASE THE CHRISTIANS' FAITH IN THE BIBLE AS THE WORD OF GOD; AND PROVE TO THE UNSAVED THAT THE MASTER MATHEMATICIAN WHO INSPIRED THE SCRIPTURES IS THE SAME LORD JESUS CHRIST WHO IS ABLE TO SAVE TO THE UTTERMOST ALL WHO COME TO HIM IN FAITH.

Previous ed. published in 1997 under the title: The loom of God: mathematical tapestries at the edge of time, by Plenum Press.