Any prominent Christian mathematicians?

[James]

Re: Any prominent Christian mathematicians?

...

You will get no satisfactory answer to that question. The ontological
proof of the existence of God played fast and loose with this problem.
Thomas of Aquino did not accept the ontological proof and concocted an
alternative by skillfully redefining "exist" (in Latin, of course, so
he was redefining "esse" or something like that). I fear that Thomas'
solution was even less popular than the ontological solution.
I am not going to make any contributions to this philosophical
dilemma. In my opinion all attempts to prove the existence of God will
fail and, moreover, they are all unnecessary because existence of God
is an empirical fact and, therefore, independent of logical thinking,
no matter how convoluted.

Hello,

all attempts to prove the existence of God will fail

You go to a museum and look at an ancient beautiful sculpture of a
human. Do you automatically assume that evolution produced it, just
because you can't see the creator of it?

God has left His 'sculptures' all over the place. And God's
'sculptures' have moving parts, with intricate systems all working
together in unison (such as an immune system, circulatory system,
digestive system, etc).

The human brain is greater in technology than any supercomputer man
has ever been able to produce. Yet people are taught that mindless
forces over time, created that 'computer and more', brain. Many
reasoning people just cannot accept that. They have NEVER seen
mindless random chance produce even the simplest machine with moving
parts. And neither has anyone else. It is just a THEORY they use,
trying to explain the origin of life without any God. Be careful with
them, they may also try to sell you a bridge in Alaska!


Sincerely, James

If you wish to have a discussion with me, please use email since I do
not follow all conversations in ng threads


***********************************
Want a FREE home Bible study?
Have Jehovah's Witnesses Questions?
Go to the authorized source:
http://www.watchtower.org
***********************************

[DKleinecke]

Post by James
You go to a museum and look at an ancient beautiful sculpture of a
human. Do you automatically assume that evolution produced it, just
because you can't see the creator of it?

Perhaps I have a defective esthetic sense, but I do not find ancient
sculpture beautiful. Sometimes striking, often grotesque. But it has
nothing to do with evolution and the sculpture's creator was a man,
located in a time and place and sometimes even with a name.

If you mean I am supposed to admire the beauty of the generic human
body, I don't. If I were to judge God's handiwork on the basis of the
esthetic value of the human body I believe I would immediately opt for
atheism. An animal can be beautiful - are pumas more beautiful than
tigers? But it doesn't appear that evolution especially favored
beauty. The top predators, the bears, are pretty homely. Evolution
being, of course, God's way of creating things.

Post by James
The human brain is greater in technology than any supercomputer man
has ever been able to produce.

That definitely depends on what you are trying to do. If you are
calculating with numbers even a cell phone is smarter than a human
being. People and computers do not do the same things. So far the
human mind is better at pattern recognition than computers. And nobody
has really ever programmed a computer to be creative. The nearest
approach I know of to computer creativity is the behavior of
antagonists in the better computer games.

Post by James
From just because one cannot see how something could come about one

cannot conclude that therefore it was a planned conclusion. There is,
for example, the paradox of the fifty million monkeys. If you keep
those monkeys going at it they will write the whole Bible (and add a
couple of commentaries). Billions of years is an awfully long time.
Would their copy of the Bible be the inspired word of God?

Besides I thought evolution and intelligent design had been declared
out-of-bounds on soc.religion.christian. You snuck that one passed the
moderator.

---

[The discussion has been pretty well focused on the theological
implications. That's fair game. It's the scientific discussion
that I'm not in a position to moderate. --clh]

[Matthew Johnson]

In article <ccfEk.845$***@nwrddc01.gnilink.net>, DKleinecke says...

[snip]

Post by DKleinecke

Post by James
The human brain is greater in technology than any supercomputer man
has ever been able to produce.

That definitely depends on what you are trying to do.

No, it does not. You are artificially narrowing the scope of your considerations
to come out with the result you want.

Post by DKleinecke
If you are
calculating with numbers even a cell phone is smarter than a human
being.

No, because it took the smartness of humans to MAKE the cell phone. It was
specifically because of the smartness of humans that a cell phone CAN calculate
with numbers.

Not to mention: humans had to do it first. So this is a very poor way to compare
'smartness'.

Post by DKleinecke
People and computers do not do the same things.

Of course not. Computers can only calculate. They can only do the calculations
they have been designed and programmed to do. The human brain/mind can do all
kinds of things, even things evolution certainly never 'designed' it to do.

What is the evolutionary advantage in finding the complete classification of all
simple and semi-simple finite groups? None;)

Post by DKleinecke
So far the
human mind is better at pattern recognition than computers. And nobody
has really ever programmed a computer to be creative. The nearest
approach I know of to computer creativity is the behavior of
antagonists in the better computer games.

Post by James
From just because one cannot see how something could come about one

cannot conclude that therefore it was a planned conclusion. There is,
for example, the paradox of the fifty million monkeys. If you keep
those monkeys going at it they will write the whole Bible (and add a
couple of commentaries). Billions of years is an awfully long time.

And "billions of years" is nowhere NEAR long enough for the monkeys in your
example to produce anything like the works of Shakespeare or the Bible. You must
not understand probabilities very well.

In fact, disproving your example was one of the first things Kittel & Kroemer
did in there excellent book "Thermal Physics": they did it to make the point
that there really are some events that have such low probability, we really are
justified in treating it as ZERO. Understanding this is an important
prerequisite to understanding thermal physics.

Perhaps a follow up posting will even be able to show its relevance to
understanding the "watchmaker argument" and it close relatives, too.


[snip]

[Zor-El of Argo City]

Sir Isaac Newton is the answer to the header.
Besides his pathbreaking work in advanced mathematics and his outline of
Gravity, he wrote veru extensively on Biblical matters.

NUCLEAR POWER: The global warming solution!

[Zor-El of Argo City]

Also William Dembski, a brilliant mathemetician who is prominent in the
Intelligent Design movement.

NUCLEAR POWER: The global warming solution!

[DKleinecke]

Post by Zor-El of Argo City
Also William Dembski, a brilliant mathemetician who is prominent in the
Intelligent Design movement.
NUCLEAR POWER: The global warming solution!

So far as I can tell William Dembski has never published any papers in
Mathematics - not even his doctoral thesis. As I read the biography on
his web site he has two doctorates - one in philosophy from the
University of Illinois and one in Mathematics from the University of
Chicago. He has not seen fit to put up a bibliography of his claimed
writings.

In general when I see such a sad presentation I assume the person
involved is a fraud and his credentials are false.

The difficulty with the original question is that mathematics is so
impersonal that, unless one is a fundamentalist fanatic like Dembson,
there is no way to detect whether or not a mathematician is a
Christian.

There are no prominent mathematicians who are well-known to be
Christians - but many surely are.

---

[Here's a detailed CV:
http://www.designinference.com/documents/PDF_Current_CV_Dembski.pdf
A couple of the publications might be pure math, but even during
the period when he was a postdoc in math, they almost all seem
to be at the intersection of math and theology.
--clh]

[Matthew Johnson]

In article <HAVGk.1391$***@nwrddc01.gnilink.net>, DKleinecke says...
[snip]

Post by DKleinecke
There are no prominent mathematicians who are well-known to be
Christians

What? Shafarevich is still alive, and still prominent, even if it is true that
he hasn't done prominent mathematics lately. How he rose to such prominence even
while remaining a faithful Orthodox Christiand in the Soviet days is a mystery
to me. But he did it.
Shafarevich made fundamental contributions to several parts of mathematics
including algebraic number theory, algebraic geometry and arithmetic algebraic
geometry. In algebraic number theory the Shafarevich-Weil theorem extends the
commutative reciprocity map to the case of Galois groups which are extensions of
abelian groups by finite groups. Shafarevich was the first to give a completely
self-contained formula for the pairing which coincides with the wild Hilbert
symbol on local fields, this initiated an important branch of the study of
explicit formulas in number theory.

..

He also formulated the Shafarevich conjecture which stated the finiteness of the
set of Abelian varieties over a number field having fixed dimension and
prescribed set of primes of bad reduction. This conjecture was proved by Gerd
Faltings as a step in his proof of the Mordell conjecture.

All of these things were MAJOR results. So yes, he does qualify to be called
'prominent'.

[snip]

[DKleinecke]

Post by DKleinecke
So far as I can tell William Dembski has never published any papers in
Mathematics - not even his doctoral thesis.
[Here's a detailed CV:http://www.designinference.com/documents/PDF_Current_CV_Dembski.pdf
A couple of the publications might be pure math, but even during
the period when he was a postdoc in math, they almost all seem
to be at the intersection of math and theology.
--clh]

Thank you for the link. It is indeed a full CV.

Dembski clearly is not what in mathematical circles is called a
mathematician. He is, by training, a statistician. The difference
really does matter. Mathematicians have very strict formal rules for
proof and an idea of what constitutes truth that seems odd to non-
mathematicians. Statistics is a branch of applied mathematics devoted
to drawing plausible conclusions from observed data.

It seems to me that the intersection between mathematics and theology
is empty. The two fields seem to have essentially nothing in common.
It is possible to move into theology (through philosophy) when you try
to interpret mathematics. For example, the existential status of
transfinite cardinals can be discussed, but the discussion takes us
all the way back to Plato and the meaning of existence. Any meaningful
discussion of the meaning of existence is forced to take into account
the ontological proof of the existence of God. And now the discussion
has entered theology. But it has left mathematics a long way behind.

A statistician, on the other hand, wants to know and is trained to
use, methods of plausible inference. Plausible inference is a concept
that has nothing in common with mathematical proof. It is appropriate
that Dembski be trained as a statistician because all anyone can ever
achieve in theology (or philosophy) is plausible inferences.

But note well - the inference must be made from empirical data.
Mathematics exists in a dream world of completely defined objects.
Philosophy (the part relevant here), theology and statistics exist in
the real physical universe.

If you think too had about these matters it will make your head hurt.
Ask yourself - did God create the objects of mathematics? For example,
did God create the empty set - the set of things with nothing in it?
It seems to me that all this does no more than disappear into a morass
of paradoxes.

It is better to go out and enjoy the sunshine and smell the flowers.

[DKleinecke]

Post by Matthew Johnson

Post by DKleinecke
There are no prominent mathematicians who are well-known to be
Christians

What? Shafarevich is still alive, and still prominent, even if it is true that
he hasn't done prominent mathematics lately. How he rose to such prominence even
while remaining a faithful Orthodox Christiand in the Soviet days is a mystery
to me. But he did it.

I would call Shafarevich a prominent mathematician, although I am bit
vague on the older Russians.

However I would not say that he is well-known to be a Christian. As I
said before mathematics is so impersonal that you cannot tell a
person's religious beliefs from their mathematics. Generally one would
have know something more about his life outside mathematics to know
that he was a Christian.

Only a few mathematicians have the kind of exposure that is needed. We
all know Grothendieck has become a hermit. We know that Grigory
Perelman (a Russian) is peculiar. We all know that Nicolas Bourbaki is
a non-person. On the whole I can think of no one who is well-known for
their religious affiliation - Christian or otherwise.

Shafarevich would be far from the first mathematician whose non-
mathematical works were not well-known in the mathematical world. Or
overlooked as a courtesy (for example, Teichmuller).

And I for one would be embarrassed to claim Shafarevich as a fellow
Christian regardless of his standing in the church.
He is well-known (and it is explained rather fully in Wikipedia) that
he is a rabid anti-Jewish propagandist and holocaust denier.

And, circling back, did the original poster mean (1) a well-known
person, in the world at large, who happens to be a mathematician, or
(2) a mathematician who is well-known within the mathematical
community as a Christian. I seem to have assumed (2) but he may have
intended (1).

One mathematician more recent than Isaac Newton whose Christian faith
is reasonably well-known is Leonhard Euler - but he too was a long
time ago. There is a story about him the punch line of which goes "E
to the pi I equals -1 therefore God exists." Please do not ask me to
explain it.

[Matthew Johnson]

In article <ixyHk.1980$***@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>, DKleinecke says...

[snip]

Post by DKleinecke
He is well-known (and it is explained rather fully in Wikipedia) that
he is a rabid anti-Jewish propagandist and holocaust denier.

As all too often, what is "well known" is simply wrong. For that matter, the
Wikipedia article I looked at did NOT call him a "holocaust denier", but used a
milder description, "his view on the holocaust are controversial".

And indeed: what I see is not that he _denied_ the holocaust, but that (as
quoted in the article), he feels it is unfair to exaggerate the holocaust's
significance when compared to other genocides.

That is NOT "holocaust denial".

If you want to look for "prominent christian mathematicians", you must learn to
read more carefully than this.

On balance, it is really pretty silly to complain about Shafarevich's
"anti-semitism". It is like those radical pro-Israel people who makes excuses
for everything Israel does, calling all criticism of Israel "anti-semitism". It
is one of his teachers, Vinogradov, who was the _real_ anti-Semite. All
Shafarevich's criticisms of the Jews are much, MUCH more reasonable than
Vinogradov's!

[Matthew Johnson]

Post by DKleinecke
There are no prominent mathematicians who are well-known to be
Christians

Have you heard of the Hopf Invariant? Or of Hopf Algebras? These are named after
Heinz Hopf, born to a Jewish family, but converted to Lutheranism (well, if you
consider the German State Church 'Lutheran') in 1895. His work was mainly in
algebraic topology, where he is considered to have continued Brouwer's work.
Both Hopf Invariants and Hopf Algebras are still used in graduate school level
mathematics today.

There is also Hecke's friend, and once (until 1972) editor of the world-famous
mathematics journal Mathematische Annalen, Heinrich Behnke. But his own
mathematical work, though he wrote one classic text (Theorie der Funktionen
mehrerer komplexer Ver nderlichen), is not so well known nowadays. He too was
Lutheran.

Both have legitimate claim to at least some prominence, both tried to help their
Jewish co-workers and colleagues persecuted by the Nazis.

[snip]

[Matthew Johnson]

Post by Zor-El of Argo City
Sir Isaac Newton is the answer to the header.

THE answer? What? Do you think there have been no others since?

Post by Zor-El of Argo City
Besides his pathbreaking work in advanced mathematics and his outline of
Gravity, he wrote veru extensively on Biblical matters.

Pathbreaking? Did you forget the priority dispute with Leibnitz? Leibnitz really
did do much the same work Newton did.

The OP posing this question was really interested in more contemporary figures.
Newton's "pathbreaking work" has not been considered the forefront of
mathematics for quite some time now. Nor should it be.

[l***@hotmail.com]

Michael Faraday comes to mind off hand. And interesting biography.
He has often been hailed as one of the best experimentalist in the
history of science, of course known as the father of
electromagnetism. He was a devote Christian who believed in the deity
of Jesus Christ.

[Steve Hayes]

Post by l***@hotmail.com
Michael Faraday comes to mind off hand. And interesting biography.
He has often been hailed as one of the best experimentalist in the
history of science, of course known as the father of
electromagnetism. He was a devote Christian who believed in the deity
of Jesus Christ.

But he was not a mathematician.

[l***@hotmail.com]

Post by Steve Hayes

Michael Faraday comes to mind off hand. =A0And interesting biography.
He has often been hailed as one of the best experimentalist in the
history of science, of course known as the father of
electromagnetism. =A0He was a devote Christian who believed in the deity
of Jesus Christ.

But he was not a mathematician.
--

per say as neither was James Maxwell but you don't arrive at their
conclusions without an deep appreciation of math.

But I'm surprised no one has noted the most prominent Christian
mathematician, Johann (or Johannes) Kepler. He, obviously, is best
known for discovering the three mathematical laws of planetary motion
("Kepler's Laws") that established the discipline of celestial
mechanics. He also discovered the elliptical patterns in which the
planets travel around the sun. He defended Nicolaus Copernicus'
theory that planets orbit the sun (heliocentrism) and sought to
reconcile it with Scripture. He revolutionized scientific thought by
applying physics (then considered a branch of natural philosophy) to
astronomy (seen as a branch of mathematics).

There is also Sir William Thomson who had his title elevated to Lord
Kelvin. You can read his stuff in "Mathematical and Physical Papers",
Lord Kelvin, (Cambridge University Press, 1911)

And present day, J. (Koos) A. van Delden

[Matthew Johnson]

In article <hxyHk.1978$***@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>, ***@hotmail.com
says...

Post by l***@hotmail.com

Post by Steve Hayes

Michael Faraday comes to mind off hand. =A0And interesting biography.
He has often been hailed as one of the best experimentalist in the
history of science, of course known as the father of
electromagnetism. =A0He was a devote Christian who believed in the deity
of Jesus Christ.

But he was not a mathematician.
--

per say as neither was James Maxwell but you don't arrive at their
conclusions without an deep appreciation of math.
But I'm surprised no one has noted the most prominent Christian
mathematician, Johann (or Johannes) Kepler.

That is because he was an astronomer and astrologer (no diff back then) NOT a
mathematician.

Post by l***@hotmail.com
He, obviously, is best
known for discovering the three mathematical laws of planetary motion
("Kepler's Laws")

He did, yes, but it was Newton who explained them.

that established the discipline of celestial

Post by l***@hotmail.com
mechanics.

By no means did they do this.

[snip]

[DKleinecke]

Post by l***@hotmail.com
But I'm surprised no one has noted the most prominent Christian
mathematician, Johann (or Johannes) Kepler.

Kepler is considered an astronomer and not a mathematician. He made no
contributions that I know of to mathematics.

Post by l***@hotmail.com
There is also Sir William Thomson who had his title elevated to Lord
Kelvin. You can read his stuff in "Mathematical and Physical Papers",
Lord Kelvin, (Cambridge University Press, 1911)

Lord Kelvin is considered a physicist and not a mathematician. He also
made no contribution that I know of to mathematics. I assume he is not
responsible for the title someone put on his collected papers

Post by l***@hotmail.com
And present day, J. (Koos) A. van Delden

I have never heard of a mathematician named van Delden. A search of
the Internet discloses that there is a soccer player named Koos van
Delden (and therefore you are making a joke) and a creationist named
J. A. van Delden. By default I assume you are referring to the
creationist. I doubt that the man is a mathematician, much less a
prominent one.

This is getting extremely marginal to the subject of the group. I
admit I do not understand why Christian ideologues who have been
driven into the crackpot positions in their attempts to defend one or
another idea that they imagine to be true Christianity want
respectability in the same circles they attack.

God does not need to be respectable among men. In fact if you take the
23rd chapter of Matthew (and similar passages elsewhere) seriously
Christians should shun the spotlight of prominence among humans. That
particular piece of Jesus' teaching seems to completely forgotten in
this day and age.

[l***@hotmail.com]

Why would it surprise any bible reading christian that there aren't
many Christian mathematicians, philosophers, etc?

"Consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise
according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has
chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and God has
chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are
strong." 1 Cor 1:27

[Matthew Johnson]

In article <hxyHk.1978$***@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>, ***@hotmail.com
says...

Post by l***@hotmail.com

Post by Steve Hayes

Michael Faraday comes to mind off hand. =A0And interesting biography.
He has often been hailed as one of the best experimentalist in the
history of science, of course known as the father of
electromagnetism. =A0He was a devote Christian who believed in the deity
of Jesus Christ.

But he was not a mathematician.
--

per say as neither was James Maxwell but you don't arrive at their
conclusions without an deep appreciation of math.

Wrong on all counts! I'm actually a little surprised that I didn't point this
out in my previous reply.

Maxwell was a mathematical physicists, Faraday was not; he was an experimenter.
Indeed: the whole idea behinds Maxwell's work (in E&M) was to take Faraday's
brilliant ideas of "electric and magnetic fields" and "field-lines" and put them
into precise, insightful mathematical language. This was already a huge
achievement, and a necessary prerequisite to his even more well-known
achievements, Maxwell's equations themselves (which also required the famous
"displacement current", unknown to Faraday) and the theory of light as an
electromagnetic wave.

So Faraday was not even close to being a mathematician, while Maxwell, being a
mathematical physicist, really was quite close.

Post by l***@hotmail.com
But I'm surprised no one has noted the most prominent Christian
mathematician, Johann (or Johannes) Kepler. He, obviously, is best
known for discovering the three mathematical laws of planetary motion
("Kepler's Laws") that established the discipline of celestial
mechanics. He also discovered the elliptical patterns in which the
planets travel around the sun. He defended Nicolaus Copernicus'
theory that planets orbit the sun (heliocentrism) and sought to
reconcile it with Scripture. He revolutionized scientific thought by
applying physics (then considered a branch of natural philosophy) to
astronomy (seen as a branch of mathematics).
There is also Sir William Thomson who had his title elevated to Lord
Kelvin. You can read his stuff in "Mathematical and Physical Papers",
Lord Kelvin, (Cambridge University Press, 1911)

Why, I am glad you gave this example, Loren: for Lord Kelvin always publicly
supported an estimate for the age of the Earth that is much older than anything
supported by a literal reading of Scripture. He eventually settled on 20 to 40
million years. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kelvin#Geology_and_theology]

But of course, he settled on this unrealistically low figure only because 1)
nobody knew that the Sun is powered by nuclear fusion and 2) nobody then
understood how plate tectonics dissipate energy transfered to the Earth by lunar
tidal forces (so that the Earth acts like a 'brake' on lunar non-secular
perturbations).

If Lord Kelvin had known about these, he would have supported a much older age.

[Steve Hayes]

Post by l***@hotmail.com

Post by Steve Hayes

Michael Faraday comes to mind off hand. =A0And interesting biography.
He has often been hailed as one of the best experimentalist in the
history of science, of course known as the father of
electromagnetism. =A0He was a devote Christian who believed in the deity
of Jesus Christ.

But he was not a mathematician.
--

per say as neither was James Maxwell but you don't arrive at their
conclusions without an deep appreciation of math.

Say what?

Or did you mean "per se"?

Post by l***@hotmail.com
But I'm surprised no one has noted the most prominent Christian
mathematician, Johann (or Johannes) Kepler.

I thought the original query was about 20th-century mathematicians.

If other centuries are included there were, of course, Charles Dodgson (alias
Lewis Carroll) and John William Colenso.

Post by l***@hotmail.com
There is also Sir William Thomson who had his title elevated to Lord
Kelvin. You can read his stuff in "Mathematical and Physical Papers",
Lord Kelvin, (Cambridge University Press, 1911)

That seems more like it.

[peter_01]

Post by l***@hotmail.com
Why would it surprise any bible reading christian that there aren't
many Christian mathematicians, philosophers, etc?
"Consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise
according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has
chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and God has
chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are
strong." 1 Cor 1:27

knuth

[peter_01]

Re: Any prominent Christian mathematicians?

...
.
riemann,cayley,gauss,euler,bourbaki(cartan..)cauchy,salmon,shafarivich,sieg=
el,grothendieck,newton,wallis,barlow,hasse,teichemuler
are all christian!

[Matthew Johnson]

Post by peter_01

Re: Any prominent Christian mathematicians?

...
.
riemann,cayley,gauss,euler,bourbaki(cartan..)cauchy,salmon,shafarivich,sieg=
el,grothendieck,newton,wallis,barlow,hasse,teichemuler
are all christian!

Most of these names are 19th mathematicians, a few even earlier. The OP was
interested in living mathematicians. And Hasse was such a notorious Nazi, I
expect people will find his claim to be christian rather doubtful. But even more
doubtful, why are you listing Bourbaki? Many mathematicians writing under that
name were well known atheists. They were French, after all, writing in a period
when free-thinking atheism dominated in French universities.