A New Understanding of Mathematics

The 2011 IgNoble Prizes were announced this week (see 2011 IgNoble Prizes) and the prize for Mathematics was awarded to Dorothy Martin, Pat Robertson, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Lee Jang Rim, Credonia Mwerinde, and Harold Camping. Each of these prophets had unsuccessfully predicted the end of the world. None of the winners came to the awards ceremony to receive their awards. Could it be that each was too modest to be there (of course Martin and Prophet are dead, so they weren’t available and Mwerinde is apparently on the run from criminal authorities)?

The award was given because each of these prophets, in their own way, has taught the world to be careful when it comes to mathematical assumptions and calculations.

The committee has also included Camping’s prediction of 10/21/2011 as a failure; I suppose this means that if the world does end on that date, he will have to give his award back.

This is not the first time that a noted religious prophet has won an IgNoble Prize. Dr. Jack and Rexella Van Impe of Jack Van Impe Ministries, Rochester Hills, Michigan, won the IgNoble for astrophysics in 2001 for their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell. What is interesting is that the broadcast in which is this discovery was made is no longer available on the internet. I actually referenced this award in a 2003 sermon that I posted to my blog in 2009 (see “The Evidence before you”).

It should be noted that there are noted scientists who have predicted the end of time. As I noted in “A Dialogue of Science and Faith”, Isaac Newton also spent many hours delving into the nature of the Book of Daniel and concluded the end of time would occur sometime in 1948.

While I chuckle at the IgNoble award (when you look at some of the others, you have to marvel at what people think), the fact that many people put stock and credence into the words of false prophets bothers me. And there will be those who will use this occasion, meant in humor, to attack Christianity and use these “false” prophets as an example of futility of Christianity and religion.

It speaks to the need to teach and explain not only the basic tenets of science and mathematics, but the basic thoughts of the Bible. After all, isn’t that what Jesus did and would have us do? But, you also have to admit, it is pretty funny!

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