[FRIAM] Mission to Abisko

[Prof David West]

By John L. Casti and Anders Karlqvist

Casti seems to hail from Santa Fe — anybody know him?

Our conversations involving metaphor and story and science prompted me to reread this book over the weekend. I would like to highly recommend it to everyone on the list.

The subtitle of the book is "stories and myths in the creation of scientific 'truth'."

Jon, Frank and anyone else who identifies as a mathematician will enjoy / find interesting the chapter by Ian Steward, "Secret Narratives of Mathematics."  From the chapter:

"A proof is a story. Not any old story. It has to take off from the hypothesis and end by confirming the conclusion. Not end with the conclusion, by the way — any more than a novel is obliged to end with the hero and heroine riding off together into the sunset. The story ends when the conclusion is firmly pinned down. (This is where you stop and put your Halmos symbol.)

If a proof is a story, then a memorable proof must tell a ripping yarn."

Lot's of fun stuff about evolution, computational thinking, algorithmic and ascetic storytelling, something for everyone interested in science, how science is done, science as communication, science and prediction.

davew