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Mystery numbers explained + Maker of Patterns: Freeman Dyson's collection of letters - C C - May 4, 2018
Three Decades Later, Mystery Numbers Explained
https://www.quantamagazine.org/three-decades-later-mystery-numbers-explained-20180503/
EXCERPT: Almost thirty years ago, a group of physicists noticed some of the most important numbers in mathematics appearing where they didn’t seem to belong. A new proof finally explains why they’re there.
The work, which is still unpublished, is by four leading mathematicians in the field of mirror symmetry. It explains why the so-called zeta values — numbers that have preoccupied mathematicians since the mid-18th century — are implicated in the numerical mystery at the heart of one of the most active fields in contemporary mathematics.
“Our work gives some kind of geometric explanation for the origin of these strange numbers,” said Nick Sheridan, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and co-author of the work....
MORE: https://www.quantamagazine.org/three-decades-later-mystery-numbers-explained-20180503/
Maker of Patterns: Freeman Dyson's collection of letters
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/books/review/freeman-dyson-maker-of-patterns.html
EXCERPT: As a reader, I was enthralled by this collection of Freeman Dyson’s letters. But as a biographer, I am most annoyed with him for having squirreled all these missives away. Long ago, this now 94-year-old physicist should have shared these nuggets of history. [...] “Maker of Patterns” is not autobiography. That would require something more than just the long letters reproduced here, occasionally annotated with italicized commentary. But these letters will delight any reader with their often contrarian observations. Dyson is an excellent witness, an acute observer of personality and human foibles. This volume should make any reader pine for a deep memoir. [...] Dyson’s letters are particularly engaging when they describe the occasional flashes of illumination that lead to a scientific insight....
MORE: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/books/review/freeman-dyson-maker-of-patterns.html