What makes geometry different? Somehow it’s primal, built into our bodies. From the second we exit hollering from the womb we’re reckoning where things are and what they look like. When South American mystics (and their non– South American imitators) drink ayahuasca, the sacred hallucinogenic tea, the first thing that happens — okay, the first thing that happens after the uncontrollable vomiting — is the perception of pure geometric form: repeating two-dimensional patterns like the latticework in a classical mosque, or full three dimensional visions of hexahedral cells clustered into pulsating honeycombs. Geometry is still there when the rest of our reasoning mind is stripped away. Most people I’ve asked this question see the answer as obvious. And they are extremely surprised, sometimes even a little aggrieved, to learn that there are people whose obvious answer differs from their own. The outline of the controversy is quite consistent; the answers “zero holes,” “one hole,” and “two holes” all command substantial support. Math doesn’t answer this question, not exactly. It can’t tell you what you should mean by the word “hole”— that’s between you and your idiolect. But it can tell you something you could mean, which at least keeps you from tripping over your own assumptions. Let me start with an annoyingly philosophical slogan. The straw has two holes; but they are the same hole. The Erdős game for movie stars was invented in the 1990s by a bunch of bored college students who observed that Kevin Bacon had seemingly been in a movie with everyone; he was the Erdős of 1980s and ’90s Hollywood. And so you can define a movie star’s Bacon number to be the distance, in the costar geometry, from Kevin Bacon. Just as almost every mathematician has an Erdős s number, almost every actor has a Bacon number. I happen to have both. My Bacon number is 2, thanks to being in Gifted with Octavia Spencer, who played “Big Customer” opposite Kevin Bacon’s “Jorge” in the 2005 Queen Latifah vehicle Beauty Shop. So my “Erdős-Bacon” number is 3 + 2, or 5. The club of people with an Erdős-Bacon number is pretty small.
✔ Author(s): Jordan Ellenberg
✔ Title: Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else
✔ Rating : 4.4 out of 5 base on (487 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 1984879073
✔ ISBN-13: 9781984879073
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about Shape by Jordan Ellenberg
Melody Blake
The world-building in this book was simply phenomenal. I was transported to a different realm and felt like I was part of the characters' journey. The attention to detail made it all so immersive.
Kara Snyder
I must confess, this book made me shed tears like never before. The themes of love, loss, and resilience struck a chord with my soul. It was an emotional journey I'm grateful to have taken.
Laura Hill
The plot was so well-paced that I lost track of time while reading. I was completely immersed in the story, eagerly turning the pages to uncover the next twist.
