New York Times: To the Mathematician Eugenia Cheng, There’s No Gap Between Art and Science

 

Credit...Jillian Tamaki

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Aug. 13, 2020, 8:50 a.m. ET

“The boundaries between subjects are really artificial constructs,” says the mathematician and author, whose new book is “X+Y: A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender.” “Like the boundaries between colors in a rainbow.”

What’s the last great book you read?

“Notes From a Young Black Chef: A Memoir,” by Kwame Onwuachi and Joshua David Stein. I think it’s really important to read first person accounts of the way Black people are disadvantaged by the structures of American society, as well as by systems and by individuals. This memoir is bracing to those of us privileged to have been protected by our ethnicity or our relative affluence. In the end, however, it’s a deeply inspiring story from someone who was almost destroyed by the disadvantages piled onto them by society but who managed to rise up and then work to help others rise too.

Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time?

“Yevgeny Onegin” (in translation). I’ve known and loved the opera since I was a teenager, but the only thing I read was many articles about the difficulties of translating it, and so shied away from reading it in translation. Finally I decided to just read it anyway, and was very glad I did. There are interesting (to me) disputes about whether the opera is a travesty of the original, but to me that’s not the point. They’re two very different art forms and they operate in completely different ways. Opera uses music in the role of narrator, and characterizes people and places by communicating with us directly and viscerally without words. One of my favorite examples of this is “Billy Budd,” in which Melville spends several pages characterizing Billy and then Captain Vere, which Benjamin Britten does viscerally in about two measures of music in the opera.

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

My ideal reading experience is epic and uninterrupted. I don’t like reading in small daily installments; I like reading an entire book in one sitting. That’s if it’s a novel anyway, and if it’s any good. Deep nonfiction takes longer to absorb, and math books take years. I love the act of turning pages when I’m reading a novel; when I’m studying a math book I might need to spend several weeks on one paragraph.

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Unfortunately this means I’m often wary of starting a new novel because I can be fairly sure it will wipe out the rest of my day (and night).

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

“Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women,” by Susan Burton and Cari Lynn.

At least, nobody to whom I’ve mentioned it has heard of it so far. It’s a bracing memoir in the same vein as “Notes From a Young Black Chef,” about someone almost destroyed by the deep structural racism of our society, but who managed, eventually, to rise up to help others.

You’re a concert pianist as well as a mathematician. Who are your favorite musician-writers? Your favorite memoir by a musician?

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I don’t read much about music actually; I prefer just doing it, or learning by observation, that is, going to many many live performances (in the pre-pandemic world).

You’re the “scientist in residence” at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. How do you bridge science and art, and what’s your favorite book to discuss with your students?

Well I must admit: mine! I wrote my first book, “How to Bake Pi,” as my dream of a liberal arts math course that I thought I would never have the chance to teach, as I had tenure in the U.K., where liberal arts math is not really done (and certainly not at my university, despite my attempts to initiate it). So when I actually did have the opportunity to teach such a course, I had my ideal textbook already prepared. My third book, “The Art of Logic,” was the result of several iterations of developing that material for the actual students. The art students turned out to be, in my experience, most motivated by questions of politics and social justice. So I gradually developed material for them using those sorts of questions as an arena for mathematical investigation. I realized that I use the tools of abstract mathematics to get a much clearer understanding of those issues, and in clarifying and explaining how I do it I attained an even clearer understanding of math and social questions, as did my students.

It’s easier to “bridge” science and art when you don’t really think there’s a gap between them in the first place, as I don’t. The boundaries between subjects are really artificial constructs by humans, like the boundaries between colors in a rainbow.

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What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

I learned many things from Elaine Castillo’s deep and rich novel “America Is Not the Heart,” a saga of several generations of Filipino-Americans in California. It’s about culture and alienation, at all levels: from one’s family, one’s country, one’s community, one’s profession, and for many reasons including politics, money, skin color, sexual orientation. The specific nugget of information I learned was that doctors from other countries are not allowed to practice as doctors in the U.S., no matter how expert, experienced and well qualified they are, without completely retraining from scratch. As a result being a nurse is a smoother path to immigration than being a doctor, and some doctors end up either in unskilled work or in medical-adjacent professions such as the medical sciences in a lab.

Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?

I wish more authors would write about strong women, beyond the strength and importance of motherhood, but not just emulating traditional male behavior. This is what I call congressive strength, which is not about being physically strong and aggressive, or daring and heroic, or rich and powerful, but more about bringing people together, and transforming oneself and society through deep understanding, insight and unity. Men can show this kind of strength too, but I particularly long for books with strong women in this sense.

Do you prefer books that reach you emotionally, or intellectually?

Both at the same time. I don’t see these things as a dichotomy. In fact for me they are intimately related. Intellectual stimulation is an emotional experience for me, and something will only be a really deeply emotionally experience for me if it engages me intellectually as well.

Which genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?

I love reading novels, which for some reason seems to surprise people. However, I am getting increasingly picky about the subject matter and types of protagonists I want to see in novels, and it’s hard to find ones that fit. I like novels that give me insight into human nature, and that don’t rest solely on suspense and plot constructions, the kind of book I can read hundreds of times and still enjoy although (or indeed because) I already know what’s going to happen. I have read “Pride and Prejudice” perhaps twice a year since I was 11! I love a good murder mystery, as long as it has those insights into human nature. I quite often reread Agatha Christie. I loved reading her when I was growing up, and as an adult I notice a surprising amount of insight into human nature in them (along with, alas, some egregiously bigoted and/or imperialist views that might be considered typical of her era). She is also surprisingly feminist for the time, with quite a quantity of strong female characters and indeed female mathematicians!

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I also look for nonfiction that will expand my mind about inequality and oppression in the world today.

I have had a lifelong aversion to books that take place at sea. When I was growing up I often used to get quite immersed in a book and then groan when they went to sea, because I knew I wouldn’t like it any more. The funny thing is I really like being on a boat. Anyway this means that “Moby-Dick” is definitely not for me.

How do you organize your books?

Archaeologically! Which is to say: Not at all. The book I’ve looked at most recently will be nearest me. The books I haven’t looked at for a while will be at the back somewhere. The books I’m currently constantly looking at will be on the floor by the couch. The books I use the least are holding up my keyboard tray at my standing desk. (This includes my thesis.)

I’ve moved country too many times to have a large book collection. I know some people move large book collections around with them but I tried to send boxes of books when I moved to France from Chicago in 2006, and three of the boxes never arrived. I only sent my favorite books, the ones I really felt I couldn’t do without, so I only lost my favorite books. I’ve never quite recovered from that. I think the saddest thing was that I lost my father’s “Complete Works of Shakespeare,” which he passed on to me when I went to university. Or possibly I walked off with it.

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What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?

Aside from being surprised that I read novels, people are often really surprised that I read self-help. I love self-help books because I definitely need help improving myself and think it would be arrogant to suggest that I don’t. Yes, some of what’s written in self-help is phony and platitudinous, or I’m not really the target audience, but there is plenty in there that has profoundly helped me to become a better, more compassionate, more empathetic, less stressed person. The key, I think, is finding what helps and ignoring what doesn’t.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

I have always devoured books whole. As soon as I was old enough I spent all school holidays in the library reading my way through it. I think the library was the first place I was allowed to walk by myself. It was a tiny library in rural England but it was magic because just when you thought you’d read everything they would rotate their collection. My mother commuted to work in London but my father worked locally and would sometimes drop my sister and me off at the bigger library near where he worked, and we would simply sit there all day reading until he finished work and came to pick us up. I have always liked finishing books in a single sitting. If it’s a good book then I certainly won’t want to stop in the middle. I remember there was a book reading challenge at the library one summer, with a list of books to read, and we could get some sort of star or something for each one we read. The librarians thought I was cheating and not really reading the books, so I would sit and read several books not on the list before telling them I had finished the next one on the list.

I still think libraries are magic, and such an amazing resource so that everyone can access books. I greatly appreciate the work of librarians and really love speaking at librarians’ events.

How have your reading tastes changed over time?

I’ve become much more feminist and socially activist in my tastes. I actively look for books that will help me educate myself about social issues. And I actively reject books that go against my beliefs about women’s place in the world: that they are inherently equal but undertrodden in practice. I can no longer stomach books where all the main characters are men, or where all the strong characters are men, and women are only there to be love interests.

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Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

I don’t know what the most recent one was but I remember the first one I didn’t finish: “The Wings of the Dove.” Up until then I always finished every book as a matter of principle. But that one I really couldn’t bear, and it was odd because the whole reason I started it was because I love “The Portrait of a Lady” so much. But then I thought: Why should I finish a book that is not interesting to me? Life is too short, and there are so many books to read.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/books/review/eugenia-cheng-by-the-book-interview.html