The Computers Are Not Replacing Mathematicians; They

Politicians, Real-estate Agents, Used-car Salesmen, And Advertising Copy-writers Are Expected To Stretch Facts In Self-serving Directions, But Scientists Who Falsify Their Results Are Regarded By Their Peers As Committing An Inexcusable Crime. Yet The Sad Fact Is That The History Of Science Swarms With Cases Of Outright Fakery And Instances Of Scientists Who Unconsciously Distorted Their Work By Seeing It Through Lenses Of Passionately Held Beliefs.

If Present Trends Continue, Our Country May Soon Find Itself Far Behind Many Other Nations In Both Science And Technology Nations Where, If You Inform Strangers That You Are A Mathematician, They Respond With Admiration And Not By Telling You How Much They Hated Math In School, And How They Sure Could Use You To Balance Their Checkbooks.

The Last Level Of Metaphor In The Alice Books Is This: That Life, Viewed Rationally And Without Illusion, Appears To Be A Nonsense Tale Told By An Idiot Mathematician. At The Heart Of Things Science Finds Only A Mad, Never-ending Quadrille Of Mock Turtle Waves And Gryphon Particles. For A Moment The Waves And Particles Dance In Grotesque, Inconceivably Complex Patterns Capable Of Reflecting On Their Own Absurdity.

As Far As I Know, Clifford Pickover Is The First Mathematician To Write A Book About Areas Where Math And Theology Overlap. Are There Mathematical Proofs Of God? Who Are The Great Mathematicians Who Believed In A Deity? Does Numerology Lead Anywhere When Applied To Sacred Literature? Pickover Covers These And Many Other Off-trail Topics With His Usual Verve, Humor, And Clarity. And Along The Way The Reader Will Learn A Great Deal Of Serious Mathematics.

In Many Cases A Dull Proof Can Be Supplemented By A Geometric Analogue So Simple And Beautiful That The Truth Of A Theorem Is Almost Seen At A Glance.