Making Sense Of An Imperfect World

From time immemorial, faced with the complexity of Nature, man has searched for repetitive patterns, for some kind of order. This approach makes a lot of sense. All we have to do is look at the skies to see periodic motions, defining natural cycles to which we are deeply connected: the setting and rising of the Sun, the phases of the Moon, the four seasons, the planetary orbits. With Pythagoras and his followers, some 2500 hundred years ago, the search for ordered patterns was transformed into a search for a mathematical order: the patterns that we see in Nature reflect an underlying mathematical order, the mathematics of Creation. The philosopher's goal is to decipher these patterns, to reveal Nature's hidden code. As the world is the work of some kind of cosmic architect (not the Jewish-Christian-Muslim super God but a creative deity nonetheless), to unveil the secrets of the world is akin to unveil the "mind of God." Recently, I wrote how this metaphor remains very much alive today, being used by many scientists such as Steven Hawking and others.

The search for Nature's hidden mathematical code has been -- and continues to be --extremely fruitful. It lies at the ...