MATHEMATICS as a HOMICIDAL INDICATOR
André Block, Wikipedia
Murder
On 17 November 1917, while on convalescent leave from service in World War I, Bloch killed his brother Georges, and his aunt and uncle.[1] Several conjectures about the motives for Bloch's crime exist among mathematicians.[5] However, Cartan and Ferrand quote Henri Baruk, who was the medical head of the asylum where Bloch was confined. Bloch told Baruk that the murders were a eugenic act, in order to eliminate branches of his family affected by mental illness.
5 See the article by Campbell for several anecdotal examples. Cartan and Ferrand note that "certain of these conjectures are outrageously eccentric". Krantz ("Mathematical Apocrypha: Stories and Anecdotes of Mathematicians and the Mathematical", American Mathematical Society, 2002) also lists some conjectures.
books.google.ca/books?id=dZh2SnbSxAcC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=Krantz+bloch+Mathematical+Apocrypha:+Storieslse
So how does a brilliant mathematician, and an easy-going prisoner end up a murderer (of his own family members, no less)? Well, it seems that it was precisely Bloch’s mathematical mind that led him to the murders in the first place.
Read more: forward.com/culture/365894/a-tale-of-madness-murder-and-mathematics/
www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Bloch.html
Bloch worked on a large range of mathematical topics; for example, function theory, geometry, number theory, algebraic equations and kinematics.
The next day, Bloch explained the murders to his doctor Henri Baruk, saying that there had been mental illness in his family. He saw it as his eugenic duty! [2]:-
It's a matter of mathematical logic. There were mentally ill people in my family, on the maternal side, to be exact. The destruction of the whole branch had to follow as a matter of course. I started my job at the time of the famous meal, but never got a chance to finish it.
When Dr Baruk said that this was a horrifying way to think, Bloch replied [4]:
You are using emotional language. Above all there is mathematics and its laws. You know very well that my philosophy is based on pragmatism and absolute rationality. I have applied the example and the principles of a celebrated mathematician from Alexandria, Hypatia.
The reference to Hypatia seems puzzling, but Henri Cartan and Jacqueline Ferrand found the following quote by Charles Kingsley (in a book published in 1853 which Bloch may well have read), describing Hypatia's reaction to seeing gladiators massacre prisoners [4]:-
And yet Hypatia's countenance did not falter: why should it? What were their numbers beside the thousands who had perished year by year for centuries, by that and far worse details, in the amphitheaters of the empire, for that faith which she was vowed to re-establish. It was part of the great system and she must endure it. ... After all, what were the lives of those few semi-brutes, returning thus a few years earlier to the clay from which they sprang, compared with the regeneration of the world?
Dr Baruk diagnosed that Bloch was suffering from [2]:-
... morbid rationalism. [He committed] a crime of logic, performed in the name of absolute rationalism, as dangerous as any spontaneous passion.
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Hypatia's reaction to seeing gladiators massacre prisoners :-
And yet Hypatia's countenance did not falter: why should it?... It was part of the great system and she must endure it.
Hypatia: Great Mathematician or Geometry Teacher?
www.google.ca/amp/s/faithljustice.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/hypatia-mathematician-or-teacher/amp/orkideh84.deviantart.com/art/Hypatia-of-Alexandria-666494183
Here's the Alternative Academic view of geometry, specifically Sacred Geometry, which one has to assume is different from just Pattern Geometry favored by the "rational" organized person.
ancientexplorers.com/blogs/news/sacred-geometry
Modern Application
Much like fractals, the idea that the universe consists of an infinite pattern of energy seems to align with this geometric view of our world.
So how does this view of our universe affect the future of science? For starters, it might be wise to conduct more peer-reviewed research on the effects of geometric shapes on the human body. Ancient practices like meditation and the use of mandalas have already been proven to increase mental clarity and decrease a tendency for violence. If structures like Pyramids can help induce faster healing mechanisms and increase the decay rate of radioactive matter, surely we could apply these findings to modern architecture and begin developing a new approach to solving many of the problems that plague the modern world.
Some folks say all murder is irrational, and there may be some truth to this, as 5th Century Pythagorean cultist Hippasus of Metapontum, the man credited with the discovery of irrationality, mathematically speaking, is rumored to have been murdered for the crime of divulging the existence of irrational numbers.
esoterx.com/2014/12/03/murder-by-math-the-irrational-demise-of-hippasus/
