I’ve come to believe that mathematics, as an investigative science, as a practical discipline and as a creative art, shares many characteristics with cookery. It’s not just spaghetti alla carbonara, it’s the whole business of inventing dishes and preparing them. It’s an analogy with many parts, and it has consequences.
To introduce myself: I’m a professional mathematician, an amateur cook and an enthusiastic eater. The ideas in this essay are distilled from years of formal reasoning, mad culinary experiments and adventurous meals. In short, I’ve found that:
I do mathematics for much the same reasons that I cook.
I use the same problem-solving methods in math and cooking.
I judge dishes and math papers with many of the same criteria.
Together these observations suggest a picture of mathematics (or a picture of cooking) quite different from the popular view. The analogy is fun and the payoff is liberating.
My Reasons
I am motivated in both fields by curiosity and by thrills. I grew up reading Martin Gardner’s Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. It’s hard to describe how exciting these were. I read about logical paradoxes, about hexaflexagons, about rep-tiles, Sprouts, and Dr Matrix. I folded flexagons, I analyzed Sprouts, I teased classmates with paradoxes. It was thrilling.
At the same time I experienced thrills of a different sort. I remember keenly the first time my mother made apple pie. I remember the time my father grilled tuna steak. I remember the first time I tasted a whiskey sour. In all, these experiences made me what I am today: a seeker of thrills, a mathematical and gustatory glutton.
I also play with food and mess with math to satisfy an insistent curiosity.
