The greatest mathematician

Those who do not recognise the signs of God throughout the universe are spiritually blind, and those who see them, but still do not believe in God, will suffer from a warping of the soul.

This first appeared on 26 July 2020. The writer could not write this week due to unavoidable circumstances. Her latest column will appear soon.

“God is really only another artist,” said Picasso,

“He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat.”

Einstein once observed that God was subtle, not malicious, and very clever. Sir Michael Francis

Atiyah, the distinguished mathematician, said on a visit to Mumbai that

God was a mathematician – not exactly a new idea, since Sir James had seriously put forward the idea half a century ago that the universe was the work of a mathematician, while centuries before that Pythagoras had come to the conclusion that all things were numbers. The greatest of the human mathematicians have come across such complexities in their subjects that they have finally understood the meagreness of their own grasp of the subject. Every kind of genius, in fact, is confronted with the awesome feeling that there is a Being greater than himself at work in the universe. It is a measure of his own greatness that he can bow to Another who is infinitely greater.

Those who do not recognise the signs of God throughout the universe are spiritually blind, and those who see them, but still do not believe in God, will suffer from a warping of the soul which will leave them morally stunted for all of their lives. God conveys His message in innumerable ways, but it is only those who are genuinely receptive to it will receive His eternal blessings.