Love and Math

Love and Math is a popular mathematics book by the American mathematician Edward Frenkel, originally published as Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality. Translated by Hu Xiaorui, it was published by Citic Press in March 2016. The book weaves together two threads. One traces classic and breathtaking mathematical principles, introducing the wonders of symmetry, braid groups, Galois groups, Lie algebras and n-dimensional space, Riemann surfaces, the Shimura–Taniyama–Weil conjecture, and other vistas of modern mathematics. The other follows the author's own upbringing and intellectual journey: breaking out of the Soviet-era educational system and ultimately becoming a leading contemporary mathematician, whose research centers on the Langlands program—hailed as a "grand unified theory" of mathematics that, like the Rosetta Stone, establishes translations and connections among different branches of mathematics and even the natural sciences such as quantum physics. Using the metaphor that an art class teaches only fence-painting while never showing Van Gogh or Picasso, the author criticizes schools that reduce mathematics to a problem-solving tool, arguing that mathematics, like love, can transcend culture, geography, and time and space to connect all things in the world. Through everyday examples—splitting vodka, a borscht recipe, the curve along which characters meet in the film Casablanca—the book shows that mathematical thinking is available to everyone; the closing chapter, "The Formula of Love and the Ultimate Truth," explores the resonance between mathematics, emotion, and art. At about 310 pages, with illustrations and portraits, the book is a work of mathematical humanism that combines intellectual density with the warmth of personal narrative.