The mathematics of love

I can’t remember how I came across this (I think I saw an article about it on Metro or something), but I got intrigued by Hannah Fry’s work on “The mathematics of love”. So I bought the book and read it \(-\) it’s a fairly easy read, so I got through it in just a couple of reading-sessions, while stuck on poorly ventilated trains…

Hannah is a lecturer at UCL, where she does serious work applying maths to understand complex phenomena such as outbreak investigations or the London riots. But (and I quite like this!) she has also done work in trying to explain something as complex and unexplainable as how people fall in love with maths \(-\) at face value, this is of course ridiculous, but of course, she doesn’t take things at face value and makes quite some interesting (and amusing) points (see the TED talk below).

What was also interesting is, I think, the characterisation she gives to her work \(-\) which is to say from the perspective of a mathematician (which she is). That, I thought, was interesting as many of her points I would classify from the perspective of a statistician (which I am). I am not saying she’s wrong, of course. But I don’t think I’m either and it’s just fascinating how you see the worlds with your own googles, sometimes…