Michael Perlman, who died in 1998, was an adjunct professor at Vermont College, a Jungian psychologist, and an ecologist. He was editing the Einstein papers for Princeton University at the time of his death – a testament to his immense intellect. He was also working on a paper that explored the basis of mathematics as an expression of inherent universal structure and properties. He had previously thought of mathematics as a product of abstract human thinking divorced from any natural roots – an artificially developed discipline carried on within the confines of classrooms, private studies, and lecture halls, but not outdoors – conceptually perhaps, but seldom in practice. His new hypothesis may have been that true mathematics is in encoded in our DNA as an expression of the universal physical laws – and of course the architecture of trees. Michael Perlman is also the author of the renowned Power of Trees: The Reforesting of the Soul.
