Art and Mathematics - the two sisters

Yesterday I came across this interesting blog where there was a discussion on whether there is Art in Maths and vice-versa. Now this was a topic on which I have done some thinking in the past. So I decided to share my two cents.

The opinion in the post was that (quote) Art has a lot of Maths in it but there's no Art in Maths (unquote). Then there was this suggestion that (quote)there is a certain degree of talent as well as skill needed to be good at both Maths and Art.(unquote).

We had a good discussion on this topic.

Karthik :
Interestingly, with minimal knowledge of math, you can deduce and reach upto advanced math by pure logic and intelligence.So it is probably incorrect to say that math requires prior knowledge. Infact, any creation of new field of math is an art.There is tremendous creativity involved. Ramanujan came up with close to 4000 formulae in math purely through intuition without furnishing the proofs for many of them.

ME :
Art by definition is possibly the only thing that springs from an innate source. There is little or no skill involved except for expression of the gift and the honing (or adulteration) of it to conform to popular taste. Mathematics on the other hand is a skill , to develop it you have to walk down the path.

One might say that with minimal knowledge of math, you can deduce and reach upto advanced math by pure logic and intelligence.So it is probably incorrect to say that math requires prior knowledge. But from minimal knowledge when you deduce and reach advanced logic, you are actually treading this very path and developing your skill. Also, Ramanujan surely worked a lot on his math, he only was not schooled in the formal system of expressing it for which Hardy bailed him out.

But interestingly, Math is nothing but the modelling of what already exists in nature. Its modelling and simulating natural phenomenon and axioms so as to enable objective analysis and prediction of cause and effect. Its all for "automatic" processing. Art is the creative expression of nature "as is" but as perceived by the artist. It is this subjectivity that you pay a premium for. The very thing which you seek to eliminate as a mathematician. How ironic ! When all they seek to do is the same. Also paradoxically, the have-nots in Art, need to "cultivate" the taste to appreciate it, while the have-nots in maths can easily comprehend the results of maths through plain logic and elementary education.

One more thought...often enough great mathematicians are able to see through the veneer of objectivity and perceive the beauty of nature in their mathematical derivations and observations. That is when I think there is art in maths and you need a practitioner of the highest order, a true artist to appreciate this. Also, history shows that highly skilled mathematicians and scientific minds have been 'gifted' artists too, in music, painting or any of the other forms of creativity. Da Vinci, Bertrand Russell, CV Raman and others were all great artists or patrons of art.

Sujith :
To add to your points. Mathematicians wouldn't be happy if you say that math is just about modelling the real world. You might well be aware about Platonism, the school of metaphysicists who believe that 'mathematical objects' reside in a world of their own. Another way to say this is that Math would have been there even if this world hadn't.

Mathematicians wouldn't also be happy if you say that it's all about skills. Math has no more to do with skill than art has. Again invoking metaphysics, there's a strong school of thoughts of 'rationalists' who believe that there are a set of innate or a priori knowledge that we are endowed with. Knowledge about math is one such thing, according to them. Math is more about discovering that innate knowledge. The skill part of it just a practice with symbols so that they don't come in our way of understanding what we already seem to know!

ME :

Platonism is a refuge of the mathematicians who are more than a trifle uncomfortable with the pure objectivity in maths. ;-)

There is really a choice to be made in maths and art, also the aims are different. In one you seek to understand and PREDICT natural world, so you want hard theoretical models which are objective and most importantly replicable. The other is a choice where you dont seek to predict or really understand but just PERCEIVE and express. For eg. its most important in the derivations of maths that be used in applications without really needing to understand the real root of the derivation and how it was arrived at. Whereas in art, a person without the necessary understanding and perception wont be able to appreciate the work of art.

To wind up a lot of my babbling, I would say that I would respect a great mathematician and I would be in awe of a great artist. I hope I make sense.


Credits & Thanks To : All the bloggers mentioned in the post, Pritesh and her original post.

It was love at first hearing

Oh for the love of my own voice.....Its the most amazing thing that we spend a good chunk of our life talking and we ourselves dont get to hear our voice the way it sounds to others. It has surprised me in the past to hear recordings of my own voice. Today I happened to playback the message I had left on my friend's voicemail and was struck by how great my voice sounded. :-) I know its narcissistic, but well, I spent the better part of the next hour recording and listening to my voice in different languages....And I fell in love !

Fanaa...Oh Kajol...

Two movies this Saturday, two different flavours from a similar pot.

Although the first part of Gangster was barely watchable, I stuck on and found the second half to be entertaining. It depicted how the mind of a woman is often an emotional playground. It can play wierd games and she might make the most surprising and irrational decisions at times. I felt pity for the gangster in the end, as the director intended, but I guess the director succumbed to temptation and ended up making Emran's character all black and that of the gangster all white, instead of both being shades of black and white as humans really are. Shiney Ahuja, I thought acted decently well as the brooding gangster. I wonder how this story is even faintly similar to the Abu Salem-Monika Bedi chapter. Did I forget to mention the song "Ya Ali"?

"sahi aur galat raste mein faisla karna aasan hota hai..magar, do sahi raston mein se behtar ya do galat raston mein se munasib rasta chunna bahut mushkil..aaj kiye huye hamare ye faisle hi hamare kal ka faisla karte hain.." Well, this was the theme of the Kajol starrer, Fanaa. About difficult decisions that you got to make in life. Entertaining sher-o-shayari and I bet no forty year old can flirt as well as Aamir does, he does deliver the couplets with great panache. I am a big-time fan of Kajol and boy, is she great in the movie ! She looks as sexy as ever and great acting. Although Rani in Black was good, but Kajol's performance as a blind girl is refreshing because it is more real and effortless, without any histrionics. I liked one particular scene for the attention to detail given there. Its night, Kajol and her friend are on their beds in the dormitories reading a book each. They finish chatting and her friend tucks herself in, switches off her light and asks Kajol also to do so as she (the friend) is going to sleep. I instinctively thought "How rude !". Then immediately I realised as Kajol switches off the light and continues to roll her fingers over the braille script that she is reading, that she really doesnt need a light to read !!

There was this other scene in which their kid hands aamir a glass of milk and tells him that there was no use trying to dispose off the milk by throwing it into the sink, out into the snow or some other means because his mom was too smart for all this. Then as he turns to go away, he pauses and remarks that in case Aamir ("deadman" ) happens to find out a foolproof way of doing it, he would be glad to know about it too ! Reminded me of how my own methods of doing away with the awful daily glass of milk without my mom coming to know about it evolved over time to perfection. Alas, the ingenuity of a child's brain...

To cut a long review short, Fanaa is definitely atleast a one-time movie just for Kajol.

Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the most influential of them all

A small ripple in one place which gives rise to big shockwaves everywhere around the globe. No, I am not talking about the butterfly effect or chaos theory here. I am referring to how the words of one man can have big effects on economies around the world. And if you thought it is someone like the President of the only superpower who wields such influence, then you are mistaken. Much more influential are the words of the Greenspans and the Bernankes of this world. The Fed chairman sneezes and the bourses all over catch a cold. He insinuates and hints at changes in the interest rate and investors world over lose their shirts. There are umpteen highly-paid analysts who move billions across continents, forever trying to pre-empt and outguess this guy.

In comparison, the Prez makes a big speech on how great the war on terror is going and how the bad guys are on the run and its all I can do to keep myself from yawning and switching channel.

Sigh...the ways of the world.

As we wait in anticipation of yet another hike in rates, isnt it interesting to note that the Fed rate has risen from 1% to 5% over a period of about 3 yrs !




For more of these cartoons : check this out

Requiem for a dream?

A land of myriad people,ours is a nation inhaling and exhaling diversity in its every breath. You have umpteen languages, religions, sects and even sub-sects which form a multi-dimensional grid in which every inhabitant can be slotted. And each flavour of this diversity brings along its own baggage of prejudices nurtured through centuries of mistrust. The very fact that we have survived over almost sixty years as a single democratic entity often boggles me. What is it that prevented us from fragmenting into smaller nations each seeking to find and plot their own destiny on their own terms ? Surely, it isnt not just the Sardar who we have to thank (although to him we as a nation are forever indebted). He knitted us into a single geography, but what is the thread that has sewn us and held us together, inspite of all the push and pull in the social fabric of our existence. Yes, we collectively share a past, a history of assimilations and amalgamations in this vast land. But I think I am deluding myself if I consider that there was ever really a collective consciousness or shared identity upto some fifty years prior to independence. The numerous empires that were repeatedly built and razed over this land were but poor substitutes. One concession that I will give the Mahatma and his coterie is that totally flawed though the non-violent movement for independence was, it unified the people all over the country and organised them, all for one common cause. There surely were other more effective means to drive out the British, but none of them could have infused a spirit of nationalism and shared angst across the length and breadth of the country. So yes, in some ways, the Mahatma is the father of the nation. After independence, despite the innumerable squabbles on grounds of historic grievances, we have managed to survive and plod on. So it seems to me that a nation isnt born but needs to be developed and nurtured.

So I am ever hopeful that in the long term, things shall evolve and we as a nation shall develop. A nation, where we can truly celebrate our diversity, where we can think rationally and manage our affairs better, a place where the rulers are accountable to the subjects. Where everyone is an equal. Thats my dream. But often I am forced to wonder if with all the corruption, the religious bigotry and a dysfunctional political leadership, we are doing alright? And worst of all, what can I do about it? Why, I am even unable to vote out an ineffective, corrupt and criminal politician. It has come to a point that the govt passes legislations which sacrifice rationale and ethics at the altar of expediency. They can do this with impunity because it requires the collective action on part of the society to reject them and these divisive tactics that they employ. But aware minority in the country have either been brainwashed on a diet of pseudo-secularism or other crap or else are unable to influence the outcomes or policy in the country. The majority is bogged down by their petty prejudices to see through this. The collective action that democracy demands leaves me feeling impotent and helpless. So whats the way out? There is only the hope that slowly but surely things might improve. Whether its a fool's fantasy, time alone will tell.

A nationalist's dream :

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake"

There are occasions when I feel pessimistic and despondent and this post is a result of one such occasion. But I wonder....