Essays · No. 8

The Language of Creation

Why Physics Generates Mathematics

123 + 186 + 323 p.

Secure payment · DRM-free · Corrected editions for life

A philosophical essay on what contemporary mathematics and physics become when they are viewed as two methods of access to a single structure. Around three cases (mirror symmetry, the Langlands-gauge correspondence, renormalisation as Galois theory), and closing with a meditation on a page of Borges, the book argues that physics has been generating, for sixty years, the deepest mathematics, and that this is not an accident.

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Contents

Act I: The Question

The miracle of Wigner · The reversal · Golden age, divorce, remarriage

Act II: The Fabric of the Real

The zoo of particles · The vibrating string · The world in eleven dimensions · The landscape and selection

Act III: The Convergences

The foundry of mirrors · Knots and manifolds · When Langlands meets gauge

Act IV: The Synthesis

Three philosophies of convergence · Why physics generates mathematics · The language of creation

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CollectionEssays · No. 8EditionEnglish edition · 123 + 186 + 323 p.Versionv1.0 · errataFormat105 × 170 mm · pocketTypesettingEB Garamond · ivory background · old-style numeralsFilePDF · DRM-free · corrected editions for lifeDeliveryDownload link by e-mail