Word: livio
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...ample evidence to try Posada for the 1997 bombings, which killed Italian businessman Fabio di Celmo as he sat in the lobby of the Copacabana Hotel. "My family and I have been waiting 12 years for the U.S. to officially link Posada to international terrorism," Di Celmo's brother Livio told reporters Thursday via conference call. But the U.S. may have felt emboldened to indict Posada this week for perjury in no small part because the FBI - whose informants have linked Posada to the 1976 airline bombing, and whose agents in 2006 traveled to Havana to conduct their own investigation...
...power to explain worldly phenomena. Despite his passion, both Livio’s writing and argument are uneven. At times his prose reads like a history textbook, at others like a review of the latest research in astrophysics. Belying his vigorous attempt to write to the reader, Livio struggles in vain to include sufficient background information necessary for the average reader to match his own remarkable comprehension and unique enthusiasm...
...This gap between Livio and his readers is exacerbated by his failure to reach a satisfying conclusion in the closing pages of “Is God a Mathematician?”. After lauding mathematics as the key to understanding the universe for eight chapters, Livio writes that “mathematics is indeed extraordinarily effective for some descriptions, especially those dealing with fundamental science, but it cannot describe our universe in all its dimensions.” He explains that the predictive and explanatory powers of mathematics have been amplified by scientists who choose to work on problems that...
...Readers looking to glean divine revelations about the relationship between mathematics and the universe’s structure will be sorely disappointed by “Is God a Mathematician?” Livio leaves the reader with the ambiguous notion that mathematics is in part developed by the mathematicians who study it and also inherent to the natural world around us, waiting to be discovered by intrepid and persistent minds...
...Livio is most successful in communicating a deep respect for the power of mathematics and the intellectually rigorous theory behind it that many will never understand. By opening the door to mathematical theory, “Is God a Mathematician?” casts doubt on the absolute truths of arithmetic and geometry that are taught in school and brings Livio one step closer to making enthusiastic readers appreciate the wonder and sophistication of abstract math...