Beautiful Mistakes

Every January, several thousand mathematicians converge in a convention centre for a meeting of minds, rotating through the cities of San Diego, Baltimore, San Antonio, Seattle and Atlanta. This year, back in San Diego, the theme of the massive Joint Mathematics Society (attendees mostly comprising members of the American Mathematical Association and the Mathematical Association of America, plus a decent Canadian showing) was the “Mathematics of Planet Earth.” Keynote talks addressed the math of climate change and the melting polar ice caps. And the screening of a new film, Darwin’s Extra Sense, raised questions about how mathematical models can help us make sense of nature’s complexity—the film’s title deriving from Darwin’s lament that he had not worked harder at mathematics and gained the “extra sense” he believed mathematicians lent to comprehending the world.

That mathematics serves as the so-called handmaiden to science rests on its power to probe...