Naoki Koike is a famous contemporary Japanese thinker, whose research fields are very extensive, from economics and mathematics to law and sociology, and then to literature, philosophy and theology. His works are many, but few have been translated into Chinese. Fortunately, when I was wandering in Taobao, I saw one of his out-of-print "For those who hate mathematics". It is increasingly found that there were many out-of-print foreign educational translations in the past, and there are bookstores on Taobao that specialize in selling copies of such out-of-print books. )

This book tells the origin of mathematics and its role in historical and social development from a historical perspective. This paper focuses on the role of mathematics in three aspects: the influence on people's thinking logic, the influence on the development of capital society and the role in economics. The examples in the book are not very close to life, but they are quite suitable for people like me who work in government departments? And people who care more about the economy. Nevertheless, compared with the previous introduction to statistics, it is still a bit abstruse.

This book is divided into five chapters.

The first chapter is entitled "The Source of Mathematical Logic-Mathematical Logic Originated from Ancient Religion". Although modern mathematics originated in Greece, it was ancient Judaism that gave birth to formal logic earlier. Because the only god worshipped by ancient Judaism was not very amiable, Moses, a missionary, took on the role of a bridge between gods and people, and also tried to help mankind convince God to be better for mankind. Although this god has a bad temper, he is very reasonable. Thus, in the process of negotiating with God, Moses gradually mastered strict logical rules and clear Jewish teachings written in every detail. Formal logic promoted the prosperity of ancient Israel.

With mathematical thinking, the first question you will encounter is existence and non-existence. This is a philosophical concept for ordinary people, but it is actually very important. ? For example, natural numbers are the most directly used numbers in life, while decimals are more abstract. Then the concepts of rational number, irrational number, real number and imaginary number are developed. Modern people can easily understand real numbers, but it is difficult for ancient people to understand irrational numbers; Similarly, there are not many modern people who understand imaginary numbers. The more abstract things are, the more complex and advanced applications are.

Some problems have definite solutions, some problems have no definite solutions, or there is no always correct answer. For example, economic problems, such complex problems and countless influencing factors are unlikely to be explained by an always correct model. And even if there are solutions to some problems, they may not be solved. For example, the N-degree equation has only been proved to have a solution for more than 5 times, but the current mathematical theory can't solve it. The latter phenomenon is too abstract, but the former phenomenon is very common and deserves our attention.

This book gives examples of great sailing. Zheng He sailed to the West earlier than Europe, but in the end, Europeans traveled around the world and discovered America. This is because the purpose of Zheng He's voyage to the West is not to solve problems, and he has no possibility of a new continent in his mind? This concept. The second example is being in power. The book says that many officials are good at solving problems, but politics