Understanding the Universe

Abstract

Like many of you reading this book, I have been a lifelong fan of science fiction movies, books, and television shows. This is not very unusual for a math and computer geek, since there has always been a strong correlation between interest in mathematics, space travel, and science fiction. To some extent, this is inherent in the topic: after all, our space program and our knowledge of astrophysics, astronomy, and cosmology are heavily dependent on some of our most advanced mathematical techniques. But I think it goes beyond this, with some fundamental similarity between the way we stretch our minds to think about what might lie beyond us in space, and what might lie in the many mathematical possibilities beyond our mundane systems of counting and measuring.