MIchael Atiyah, Reknown Mathematician

Michael Atiyah  (1929-2019),  Reknown Mathematician

Having floundered in my own studies of physics when I came upon the mysteries of differential equations, I enjoyed reading the obituary of this famous mathematician.   He is said to have “heavily influenced the whole contemporary development of how math and physics have interacted.”  

I found intriguing the final paragraphs of the New York Times obituary (1/12/2019):

“In 2013 he told an online interviewer: ‘I believe in new ideas, in progress.  It’s faith.  I’ve recently been thinking about faith.  If you’re a religious person, which I’m not, you believe God created the universe.   That’s why it works…  Scientists, outside of religion, have their own faith.  They believe the universe is rational.  They’re trying to find the laws of nature.  But why are there laws?   That’s the article of faith for scientists.  It’s not rational.  It’s useful.  It’s practical.  There is evidence in its favor: the sun does rise every day.  But nevertheless, at the end of the day, it’s an article of faith.’”

In “Athens Dialogues, E Journal”  Atiyah wrote about his faith in the universe as rational in an essay “The Spirit of Mathematics.”  The essay helps us fill in the online interview:

“What we can say is that scientists of all types believe in the existence and reality of such laws (of nature). They believe that the natural world is indeed built on coherent principles, and that it is the task of the scientist to discover these laws. In the end we scientists believe in a rational world as an article of faith. For some it is evidence of divine creation. For others it remains a mystery, but such faith appears to have been justified. The success of science is difficult to deny, though one may continue to speculate on the ‘ultimate reality.’”

Atiyah doesn’t comment here on some of the laws of the mysteries of human love that also are useful and practical.   But his concern in this essay for the ethical uses of scientific understanding surely opened a window in this direction.  It is my hope that such windows are now open for Michael to the source of these mysteries.