[Vinceo]

He credited his work to his family goddess. From wikipedia:

"A deeply religious Hindu, Ramanujan credited his substantial mathematical capacities to divinity, and said the mathematical knowledge he displayed was revealed to him by his family goddess. "An equation for me has no meaning," he once said, "unless it expresses a thought of God.""

[dntbnmpls]

Isaac Newton: "All my discoveries have been made in answer to prayer."

People forget how religious newton was and he believed his physics was the discovery of god's physical laws.

Chemistry comes from mystic alchemy. Astronomy derives from astrology.

Just like there is a thin line between genius and madness, the same seems to apply to science and mysticism. Turn the dial a few degrees, you get mysticism. Turn it a few more degrees, you get science.

History of science is just as fascinating as history of politics. It's a shame we focus on the latter so much.

[psychoslave]

There are no real historical conflict between mysticism and science. Take Russel's essay "Mysticism and logic" for example, Russel having evolved from a more Platonist point of view to a more atheist materialist one over its long lifespan, inventing "neutral monism" on the road.

However there are clear possibility of conflicts between scientific approach and institutional religions. Note that people don't need to be anything close to an atheist to get into trouble when their thoughts are going out of the road promoted by the institutional dogma of the day. Giordano Bruno is one famous case of such a human drama.

Of course religion here is more the mean of political control than anything else, and it can be substituted by other means just as detrimental to independent critical free thought.

[scotty79]

I think the clear border is that if you start to make things up that go against what we solidly measured so far or you have gaps in your derivation then you are well within 'mysticism' part of the dial. I think there's even slightly audible click when you go to that part of the dial.

[texteller]

Ramanujan always surprises.

Recently visited the "Ramanujan Museum":

* Where we could see his family goddess - Sri Namakkal Namagiri Thayaar who he credited for his works:

http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan...

* His desk where he made his early mathematical findings:

http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan...

* Really sadden to see how a Ramanujan's wife lived her life after Ramanujan's demise:

http://casualwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ramanujan...

* Check the full photo coverage about Ramanujan and his fascinating works at:

http://casualwalker.com/museum-for-the-man-who-knew-infinity...

[dr_dshiv]

Mathematics are the best expression of the transcendental divine. Pythagoras and Plato had the same perspective.

[unlinked_dll]

Funny to use the word transcendental there, since the Pythagoreans held ratios to be divine but couldn't figure out irrational numbers, like pi. They had trouble squaring that circle.

[dr_dshiv]

That's why I think Pythagoras refused to write down his doctrines. He knew there was more to be empirically discovered -- and he was wary of how text could become dogma. The divine he uncovered was based on a mathematical, harmonious cosmos; but he recognized it was beyond understanding in a lifetime. That's why Pythagorean mysticism is compatible with modern science -- he didn't write anything down!

2000 years later, Kepler had faith in a harmonious cosmos, and charged his model of harmony so it could fit the evidence. He elipsed the circles, instead of squaring them.

Fun fact #1: it is impossible to square a circle [1]

Fun fact #2: the Pythagoreans conducted the first attested scientific experiment in Western history (according to a recent PhD thesis at UMich [2])

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle

[2] https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/150050

[rhizome]

"Transcendental" also appears in Calculus.

[wsc981]

Not a mathematician, but it was Thomas Paine's view that the hand of the divine can be seen by the study of nature - which I believe was a view shared by Isaac Newton.

Thomas Paine wrote on his point of view in "The Age of Reason" [0]:

> Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, that their word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

> As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the word revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.

> No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

> It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication- after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

> ...

> But some, perhaps, will say: Are we to have no word of God- no revelation? I answer, Yes; there is a word of God; there is a revelation.

> THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD and it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man.

> …

> It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.

> Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is governed! Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the book called the Scripture, which any human hand might make, but the Scripture called the Creation.

> The only idea man can affix to the name of God is that of a first cause, the cause of all things. And incomprehensible and difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he arrives at the belief of it from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbelieving it. It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time when there shall be no time.

> In like manner of reasoning, everything we behold carries in itself the internal evidence that it did not make itself Every man is an evidence to himself that he did not make himself; neither could his father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any of his race; neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself; and it is the conviction arising from this evidence that carries us on, as it were, by necessity to the belief of a first cause eternally existing, of a nature totally different to any material existence we know of, and by the power of which all things exist; and this first cause man calls God.

> ...

> That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his works, and is the true theology.

---

[0]: https://www.deism.com/theageofreason.htm

[dr_dshiv]

Thanks for sharing.

[psychoslave]

Yes, it looks like for many mathematicians, the confusion between stable conceptual foundation and eternal objective reality is too seductive to not fall in the illusion of identity of things locally indistinguishables.

[econcon]

I think they believe that every thought that comes to them is the part of common consciousness of the cosmos.