NUMBERS AND ANGELS

Hello! My name is Dom Veconi and I'm a mathematics Ph.D. student at the Pennyslvania State University Eberly College of Science in State College, PA. That's me in the picture, the second on the left, with some colleagues of mine from an REU at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, at the AMS/MAA Joint Math Meetings in 2014. In addition to being a mathematician, I am also a practicing Catholic. Since I've always been one of the only people in my various friend groups who is both of those things -- and the only person in my immediate family who is either of those things -- I've had a fair number of interesting conversations with people over the last couple years. Several times recently I've had to refine and reshape my views on the nature of mathematics. I've found that my response to the question "what is math?" informs my spirituality (and vice versa). So for a while I've been thinking of starting a blog to share my thoughts on this matter with other people, and hopefully begin having more dialogues with others -- both mathematicians and non-mathematicians, religious folks and atheists -- about the answers to some of these big questions. What is mathematics? Why do we study it? If God exists, is God a mathematician? 

 

So with that, I present "Numbers and Angels: Reflections on mathematics, science and spirituality." To appropriate the late David Bowie, I don't know where this blog will go, but I know it won't be boring. But, as any graduate student will tell you, grad school is really difficult and time-consuming. So I can't guarantee that this blog will be updated consistently, but I'll try to post something once every couple of weeks or so at least. I've got some ideas to start out, and I can't wait to share them! And sure, lots of people don't care about theoretical mathematics or spirituality, but maybe this will shed some light on why some do. And maybe someone who thinks they suck at math will read a post here, begin to understand it, and say, "Okay, I admit it. That's pretty cool." If so, I consider this a success.