Guest blogger Frank Corbo gives a mathematician's reaction to The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. Mr. Corbo is the K-12 Mathematics Coordinator for the Westport Public Schools.
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As a mathematician, I think that three themes emerge from my reading of this extraordinary little book.
*There has always been tension among mathematicians concerning the nature of mathematics itself. Is mathematics a function of the human condition, or does it transcend the human condition? Is mathematics a human invention or do we humans merely discover that which was always there?
On page 23, the professor says: "There were numbers before human beings - before the world itself was formed."
On page 24, the housekeeper says: "Is that so? I always thought that human beings invented numbers."
On page 43, the professor says: "Yes, that's right. I uncovered propositions that existed out there long before we were born."
Then, surprisingly, on page 140 the professor reverses himself when he says: "So you think that zero was there waiting for us when humans came into being, like the flowers and the stars? You should have more respect for human progress. We made the zero through great pain and struggle."
So, we're left with the same question - invented or discovered.
*Another issue has to do with how mathematics is valued. Is mathematics important to the extent that it can be used as a tool to solve scientific and technological problems? Is its worth defined by its applicability? Or, can it stand alone, and be appreciated for the serenity and beauty of the patterns and truths it reveals to those who study it?
On page 52, the housekeeper says: "I'm not sure why I became so absorbed in a child's math problem with no practical value."
On page 114, the housekeeper says: "I remembered something the professor had said: 'The mathematical order is beautiful precisely because it has no effect on the real world.'"
At one point in the story, the professor abruptly and definitively ends the argument about the dismissal of the housekeeper by writing Euler's formula, E^(i*pi) +1=0, on a scrap of paper. His sister-in-law immediately capitulates and the housekeeper is allowed to stay. "No one spoke. The widow's fingernails had ceased their tapping. Her eyes, so full of suspicion and disdain a moment earlier, now looked at me with a calm, understanding gaze, and I could tell then that she knew the beauty of math."
So is Math merely a tool to be applied by the other disciplines? Or was the 19th century mathematician H.J.S. Smith correct when in his presidential address to the British Mathematical Society he proposed the toast, “Here’s to mathematics—may she never be of use to anybody.”
*Since I am a teacher of mathematics as well as a mathematician, I was interested in what the author believed about math education. The professor has some good advice for teachers.
On page 129, the housekeeper says: "He was always delighted when Root asked a question, no matter what the subject; and he seemed convinced that children's questions were much more important than those of an adult. He preferred smart questions to smart answers."
On page 49 the professor says: "A problem isn't finished just because you've found the right answer."
In fact, that's when the "What if... ?" questions should begin.
