I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.
Admittedly, few people find such absolute salvation in mathematics, but many appreciate its power and, more critically, its beauty.
Nor does it stress the applicability of mathematics in determining planetary orbits, in understanding the world of computers, or, for that matter, in balancing your checkbook.
These individuals did not feel compelled to justify their work with utilitarian applications any more than Shakespeare had to apologize for writing love sonnets instead of cookbooks or Van Gogh had to apologize for painting canvases instead of billboards.
In this book I shall explore a handful of the most important proofs - and the most ingenious logical arguments - from the history of mathematics, with emphasis on why the theorems were significant and how the mathematician resolved, once and for all, the pressing logical issue.
The course of history is unpredictable, as irregular as the weather, as errant as affection, nations rising and falling by whim and chance, battered by violence, corrupted by greed, seized by tyrants, raided by rogues, addled by demagogues.
The constitution entailed both toil and argument.
Only by fits and starts did history become not merely a form of memory but also a form of investigation, to be disputed, like philosophy, its premises questioned, its evidence examined, its arguments countered.
The books of world religions - the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran - are pregnant with mysteries, truths known only by God, taken on faith.