Mathematic to Architecture

This is a content about ideas in architecture and ideas of architecture. Now this is a very large subject, about which many volumes have been written, almost all of them concerned with ideas of the imagination. The ideas discussed in this content are ideas of a different sort: ideas of the intellect, of reasoning. Such things are commonly believed to be the province of engineering and science and mathematics, and really not of much interest to the art of architecture. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is the aim of this book to show that although architecture is usually thought to be product of acts of inspired creation. it is also the product of acts of inspired reason; to demonstrate that science and mathematics are portions of our intellectual culture that cannot be set apart from architecture and left to the engineers to worry about, but are the concern of all of us.

Several themes run through the following chapters. At the highest level, these is the notion of the pervasiveness of mathematics in the western intellectual tradition. The extraordinary ubiquity of mathematics in our culture is not due to its instrumental efficacy, that is, to the fact that is useful for solving practical problems. The peculiar and revered position of ancient mathematics claim to provide absolutely certain knowledge.

From the birth of mathematics as an independent body of knowledge, fathered by the classical Greeks, and for a period of over 2000 years, mathematics pursued truth, Under the powerful influence of Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle, mathematics and philosophy became intertwined, sharing as they did the requirement for ironclad proofs of statements. The mission of philosophy, it was held, was to discover the true knowledge behind the change and illusion, the veil of opinion and deceptive appearance of this world. In this quest, mathematics had a special place, for mathematics knowledge was the outstanding example of knowledge independent of sense experience. It was certain, objective and eternal.

To archieve its marvelous and powerful results, mathematics relied on a special method, namely, that of deductive proof from self-evident axioms. Deductive reasoning, by its very nature, guarantees the truth of what is deduced if its axioms are truths. By utilizing this seemingly clear, infallible, and impeccable logic, mathematicians produce seemingly irrefutable