Oct 24, 2010

"Hence God Exists!"

I started doing some elementary mathematics this weekend. Well, it was forced on me to be frank. But it has been very refreshing so far. After spending recent times hearing and saying 'it depends' for almost every alternate question; something that does not depend on any temporary situation. Something that doesn't not change its face no matter when or where I see it.

Once my maths tutor asked us: "Tell me most important numbers/constants in mathematics." We all started giving him various constants: "PI", "e" , "0" , "i", "1". He listed all these on board.
"e"?, "Natural logarithm."
"PI"?, "Circle!"
"0"?, "Additive identity."
"1"?, "Multiplicative identity."
" and finally, i"?, "Imaginary numbers!!"

Then he wrote down an equation:

"e^(i*PI) + 1 = 0"

And he wrote down next to it: "Hence God exists!"

- To all of us, these constants came from really different sections. Having started with complex numbers recently, we all knew this statement as trivial. But when he presented it in such a splendid way, how all these constants form a wonderful tautology among themselves, we were mesmerized.

I've never heard such a convincing proposal for existence of God.

I used to wonder how Gypsies must be living their lives? I believe you can be a Gypsy only if you have certain stability inside you. Something that NEVER changes. When you don't have a home in the outside world, you have to have a home inside you, that you never leave. That's my idea of Gypsy.
That home, is God for me. God is that, which allows me to wander. To try. To fail. To win. Which ensures me that at the end of the day, I will remain Pankhuri irrespective of my adventures or foolish acts.

This mathematical formula has stayed in my mind ever since. A tautology. The ultimate truth. "Hence God exists!"...

6 comments:

  1. I think this one was really weird, but don't mind me, I just can't keep quiet sometimes.

    And oh, you reminded me of the "hence god exists" moment. I'm probably going to be grinning for the rest of the day. :) Also, how am I to get the matrices notes to you? Or don't you need them any longer?

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  2. I want the notes. What time do you reach home? Maybe I can collect it after office.

    Yeah. If I look at it from a distance, I started with how I was enjoying maths after a long gap and I ended up talking about gypsies and some seemingly unrelated 'Freak Out' idea again. You suppose I'm getting single tracked again?

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  3. This post made me think for quite some time. The idea of gypsy, god, constants, etc. were too much for a small brain. :)

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  4. @Prateek LOL! Yeah.. I was just going haywire I guess :)

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  5. also, what maths did you do?

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  6. now on successive differentiation. Hoping to do M1 for the starters.

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