Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality

"Math" and "love" seldom go together, but the title here fits this book. Frenkel (mathematics, Univ. of California, Berkeley) has had a lifetime love affair with uncovering mathematical secrets. The autobiographical portion of this book proves to be fascinating. As a Jew in Soviet-era Russia, where he was born in 1968, Frenkel fought against prejudice to receive a topflight mathematical education, much of it outside the traditional path. Frenkel's early work was so well received that he was invited to be a visiting professor at Harvard while still finishing his undergraduate degree in Russia. All the while, his passion to understand the mysteries of math drove him, enabling him to immerse himself so completely in his research as to facilitate the complex discoveries that brought him prestige. Intertwined with his memoir is information that will help readers see the beauty of mathematics. By using analogies, he describes concepts such as symmetries, dimensions, and Riemann surfaces in a way that will enable nonmathematicians to understand them.