17/04/2018

"Whoever understands mathematics controls the world," says Du Sautoy.

Reproduction from El País

A speech bubble on Marcus du Sautoy's (London, 1965) t-shirt reads: “ I know nothing . ” This is not true: Du Sautoy is a full professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) and holds the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science, a position he assumed after succeeding ethologist Richard Dawkins in 2008. The mathematician, writer, and science communicator was in Madrid to present the Spanish edition of his new book, * What We Cannot Know* ( not yet published in Brazil).

The T-shirt is no mere coincidence. Although the balloon comes out of the mouth of the fictional character Jon Snow from Game of Thrones , Du Sautoy chose it to draw attention to his own ignorance. Despite his immense knowledge, this is a scientist who is not afraid to admit the unknown, much less to confront it. The paradoxical statement recalls a phrase by the physicist John Archibald Wheeler: “ We live on an island in an unknown sea. As the island of knowledge grows, so does the shoreline of ignorance . ”

Question: The more we know, the more we question. Does the same apply to collective knowledge? Or does what we don't know diminish as science advances?

Answer. It all depends on the image you use. There's a feeling that knowledge is like a Greek hydra: you cut off one head and two more appear. This image of knowledge is a circle: as the circle grows, the edge, which represents the boundary with what we don't know, also seems to increase. But there's another image, which is a sphere: the more you explore the surface of a sphere, the smaller the area you don't know. I believe that physics is giving us the feeling that we are mapping the sphere and converging towards what we call a theory of everything. There's a feeling that perhaps we will reach the point where, collectively, our knowledge will be sufficient to tell the story of how the universe works. But we don't know.

P. You talk about mapping knowledge as if it were something that already exists, waiting to be discovered. If extraterrestrials did science, would they arrive at the same physical laws, would they have the same mathematics?

R. I believe that mathematics is unique. I am, at heart, a Platonist, I suppose because I am a mathematician. As humans, we may be limited in the disciplines we can explore, study, and understand; we have limitations due to our culture, our anatomy. But I believe in an underlying Platonic world that we all observe through a magic eye, and an extraterrestrial will have another magic eye.

P. In your book you mention knowledge that we can never attain, due to its very nature. Are these questions that humans cannot answer, or are they simply unanswerable?

R. It's not that they don't have answers, but the answer cannot be reached through finite processes. A question without an answer is not interesting. To give a tangible example: is the universe finite or infinite? That has an answer. We assume it's infinite, but there's a limit to what we know, because information travels at the speed of light, and the universe was born 13.8 billion years ago. We are in a bubble; no matter our intelligence, our complexity, or how many computers we use, there's no way to obtain information beyond the limits of the bubble. I think that's a good example of an intrinsic limitation on knowledge that the physical universe imposes on any being that wants to know it.

P. That's where religion comes in for many people, including scientists. Do you believe that science and religion are compatible?

R. One of the problems with religion is linguistic, the inability to define what we are referring to with certain terms. That's why in the book I'm guided by the theologian Herbert McCabe and I say: " Let's define God as everything we cannot know. " In this sense, as long as there are limits to knowledge, science and religion are compatible. I believe that many religious scientists are referring to this; they say: " I don't know where this came from, I'll call it God, the creator, but whoever creates follows laws that I can study as a scientist . " That's what we call being a deist. I believe the real problem of compatibility is for theists: they believe that their god is acting in the world. I believe this is an interesting tension worth exploring, and that's why I wanted to give more nuances than Richard Dawkins offered in this debate.

P. You distance yourself from Dawkins' stance on religion. Do you think he crossed any lines when he held the Chair for the Public Understanding of Science?

R. No. Richard [Dawkins] always took care to use science as his tool for argumentation. In this way, he focused people's attention on the reasons why they believe in evolution, why we know it's a robust theory that survives criticism. I think it had its time and place, but Richard's stance polarized the debate, and I would have liked to have a more subtle debate, with more nuances, after that important moment of the publication of The God Delusion [Companhia das Letras].

Q: What role do you play as a professor in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford?

R. I consider myself an ambassador. Science is like a superpower: it has such an impact on the rest of society… it's like a huge continent. And yet, many political crises in science, such as the controversy over genetically modified organisms and stem cell research, have arisen because the public didn't understand them. That's why I believe it's very important for scientists to step in and engage society. What I want to do is build bridges and create dialogue, to understand why people are concerned about genetically modified organisms. If scientists are proactive, we can resolve the unnecessary fears that may arise regarding the impact of science.

P. You speak of dialogue and involving society, not of the " public understanding of science " that was discussed a few years ago. Is that an outdated and condescending phrase?

R: Yes, I think so. She seems very old-fashioned to me. But the chair was created in the 1990s, when the view was that " we, the scientists, provide the answers, and you listen to us . " I'm trying to implement a modern version of my role, but the title sounds outdated.

P. Of all the sciences, people feel a special fascination for your discipline, mathematics, despite it being one of the most hated subjects in schools. Why?

R. I think it's because we repeatedly realize that mathematics underlies everything else. To understand any science, mathematics is necessary: it's the best language, the language of nature. And I think people understand, when they read about mathematics, that it's a very powerful language, and that those who understand it control the world. If you ask, " What are the world's powers today? " , it's not the heads of nations, it's the heads of companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple. They are people who know mathematics. The creators of Google, Sergei Brin and Larry Page, are two geeks who understood that mathematics allows us to navigate a very complex network. I believe people realize that the numerati , those who possess mathematics, have power.

The tragedy is that it seems education deceives us. And it's a problem in all educational systems. When we reach secondary school, the subjects become compartmentalized. There's math class, then music, then history, but we don't make the connections between them. When we do math, we don't understand that it's the basis of music. People don't notice that mathematics has a history. There was a time when we didn't have zero, and someone had the idea of the concept of zero. The way to approach the educational problem is to contextualize mathematics.

P. You described mathematics as “ the language of nature . ” Do you believe it exists outside the human mind?

R: Yes. And that's not all. I would say that the reason we see mathematics everywhere is because we are a physical manifestation of mathematics. The universe is a mathematical construct. People often want an answer to the question of who created all this. They call the creator God because they don't know what else to call him. Einstein uses the term that way. My children always tell me: " There's a problem: who created the creator? " We need something that exists outside of time and that doesn't need creation: mathematics is the god we all seek. But it's normal for me to say that, after all, I'm a mathematician.