The spirit of revolution and the power of free thought were Percy Shelley's biggest passions in life."
One could use precisely the same words to describe Galois. On one of the pages that Galois had left on his desk before leaving for that fateful duel, we find a fascinating mixture of mathematical doodles, interwoven with revolutionary ideas. After two lines of functional analysis comes the word "indivisible," which appears to apply to the mathematics. This word is followed, however, by the revolutionary slogans "unite; indivisibilite de la republic"} and "Liberte, egalite, fraternite ou la mort" {"Liberty, equality, brotherhood, or death"}. After these republican proclamations, as if this is all part of one continuous thought, the mathematical analysis resumes. Clearly, in Galois's mind, the concepts of unity and indivisibility applied equally well to mathematics and to the spirit of the revolution. Indeed, group theory achieved precisely that-a unity and indivisibility of the patterns underlying a wide range of seemingly unrelated disciplines.
One could use precisely the same words to describe Galois. On one of the pages that Galois had left on his desk before leaving for that fateful duel, we find a fascinating mixture of mathematical doodles, interwoven with revolutionary ideas. After two lines of functional analysis comes the word "indivisible," which appears to apply to the mathematics. This word is followed, however, by the revolutionary slogans "unite; indivisibilite de la republic"} and "Liberte, egalite, fraternite ou la mort" {"Liberty, equality, brotherhood, or death"}. After these republican proclamations, as if this is all part of one continuous thought, the mathematical analysis resumes. Clearly, in Galois's mind, the concepts of unity and indivisibility applied equally well to mathematics and to the spirit of the revolution. Indeed, group theory achieved precisely that-a unity and indivisibility of the patterns underlying a wide range of seemingly unrelated disciplines.
( Mario Livio )
[ The Equation That Couldn't Be ]
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