Wednesday, December 11, 2013

A Theologian, a Poet, and a Mathematician contemplate the mystery of the Creation



The whole meaning of the Universe   is contained in the Koran.
The whole meaning of the Koran, is contained in any Sura thereof.
The whole meaning of any Sura, may be confidently derived, from the deepest meaning, of any individual ayah of the same.
And that (for them that understand), from any one word within.
And  -- that -- from any letter therein.
And …  that    from but … the merest (least) [minimal] diacritical
   point thereon …..
-- Received Muslim wisdom

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
-- Wm. Blake

The period at the end of this sentence  looks, from afar, like a connected, dimension-0 manifold
-- Timothy Gowers, ed., The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (2008), p. 398

[Note to connoisseurs:  Notice that there is actually no period at the end of that sentence …]

For the contemplation of the afterlife by mathematicians, try this:
As for theologians, well, they’re well beyond that.

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