Moshe Flato. The Power of Mathematics (1990)

     Moshe Flato. The Power of Mathematics (1990) This could be read as an extended gloss on Wigner’s well-known paper on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics as a model of the physical universe. How can such an abstract, human-invented system of symbolisms become such an accurate and powerful tool for explaining and predicting the behaviour of the material world?
     Flato limits himself to a few themes, especially misunderstandings of what mathematics is and what it can do. Like many mathematicians, he stresses that mere calculation is not a mathematician’s work. Unlike many earlier pure mathematicians (eg, Hardy), he finds the interplay of physics and other sciences with mathematics to be essential to both.
     The translation limps. One can tell that Flato’s original French was idiomatic and plain, but the translator was unfamiliar with English idioms. He’s also unfamiliar with mathematics, so that too often he translates the French terms literally, not into the corresponding English mathematical terminology. These faults make the book difficult to read, which may explain the fact that I found it on a remainder table a few years ago. I shall not keep it. ** (2006)