Mario Livio is an internationally known astrophysicist, a bestselling author, and a popular lecturer. He is married to Sofie, a microbiologist, and they have three children, Sharon, Oren, and Maya.

Below you can find information about his new book,
“Is God A Mathematician?” The book addresses questions that have puzzled generations of thinkers. At the same time, the book presents a fresh, accessible, and entertaining account of the lives and thoughts of some of the greatest mathematicians and scientists in history.

Is God A Mathematician?

Albert Einstein once wondered: “How is it possible that mathematics, a product of human thought that is independent of experience, fits so excellently the objects of physical reality?” Indeed, Newton formulated a mathematical law of gravity which he himself could verify (given the observational results of his day) to an accuracy of no better than four percent. Yet, the law proved to be precise to better than one part in a million! How is that possible? Or take the example of knot theory – the mathematical theory of knots. It evolved as an obscure branch of pure mathematics. Amazingly, this abstract endeavor suddenly found extensive modern applications in topics ranging from the structure of the DNA to “string theory” – the candidate for an ultimate theory of the subatomic world.

And this is not all. The famous logician Bertrand Russell argued that logic and mathematics are really the same thing. “They differ as boy and man, ” he said, “logic is the youth of mathematics and mathematics is the manhood of logic.” So how can we explain these incredible powers of mathematics? How come that stock option pricing and the agitated motion of pollen suspended in water can be described by the same mathematical equation?

At an even more fundamental level, are we merely discovering mathematics, just as astronomers discover previously unknown galaxies? Or, is mathematics simply a human invention? These (and many more) are the questions that Mario Livio is attempting to answer in “Is God A Mathematician?” The book reviews the ideas of great thinkers from Plato and Archimedes to Galileo and Descartes, and on to Russell and Gödel. It offers a lively and original discussion of topics ranging from cosmology to the cognitive sciences, and from mathematics to religion. The focus on the scientific and practical applications of the fascinating insights of great minds will appeal to a wide audience.

Praise for Mario Livio’s Previous Book, “THE EQUATION THAT COULDN’T BE SOLVED”

“Symmetry is one of the guiding principles of mathematics and its story deserves to be told in a way that reaches a large audience. Created by two young and tragic geniuses, Abel and Galois, it has a romantic appeal that transcends technicalities. Mario Livio has undertaken this task with insight and literary skill, producing a highly readable and illuminating book.”

—Sir Michael Atiyah, Fields Medalist 1966, and Abel Prize Laureate 2004

“There’s math, yes, but there are also tales of love, violence, history – and the whole, in this case, turns out to be greater than the sum of those parts.”

–Newsweek

“Fascinating…Livio writes pasionately about the role of symmetry in human perception and in the arts.”

–The Economist

“A lively and fascinating read for a broad audience.”

–Nature