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38% complete! Merovius has read 40 of 104 books.
Since 1990, when Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time® burst on the world with its first book, The Eye of …
An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, …
An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, …
Elos von Bergen hat das Spurenfinden eigentlich an den Nagel gehängt, seit ein Fall mit einem nachtragenden Nachtmagier ihn und …
Elos von Bergen hat das Spurenfinden eigentlich an den Nagel gehängt, seit ein Fall mit einem nachtragenden Nachtmagier ihn und …
Towers of Midnight is a fantasy novel by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. It is the sequel to the novel …
Welcome to Charon's Crossing. The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.
When …
Towers of Midnight is a fantasy novel by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. It is the sequel to the novel …
When the redoubtable Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy is ordered to South America on business, he leaves his only daughter Sophia with …
@seelefand Not personally. It's well written and keeps its promise, in that it contains real proofs that are still understandable to non-mathematicians. I would have zero qualms recommending this to a person who tells me they "would love to understand math, but was always bad at school" or something like that. i.e. if there is some baseline curiosity there, but it's just perceived as too intimidating. I was impressed with the soundness of some of the proofs (e.g. they do mention the problem that 0.999…=1 for Cantor's diagonal proof, which I haven't seen many pop-sci treatments do).
Someone with a mathematical background is likely to already know most of the things talked about. I think it might help in giving examples of how to convey mathematical ideas to "normal people", if you never thought about that. I did, though, and came up with very similar explanations on my own. And …
@seelefand Not personally. It's well written and keeps its promise, in that it contains real proofs that are still understandable to non-mathematicians. I would have zero qualms recommending this to a person who tells me they "would love to understand math, but was always bad at school" or something like that. i.e. if there is some baseline curiosity there, but it's just perceived as too intimidating. I was impressed with the soundness of some of the proofs (e.g. they do mention the problem that 0.999…=1 for Cantor's diagonal proof, which I haven't seen many pop-sci treatments do).
Someone with a mathematical background is likely to already know most of the things talked about. I think it might help in giving examples of how to convey mathematical ideas to "normal people", if you never thought about that. I did, though, and came up with very similar explanations on my own. And they mostly chose examples that are pretty common in pop-science - specifically because they can easily be explained this way. So I don't think the approach carries a lot further than what's in the book. That is, they do not demonstrate that "math education could be easier" and in the algebra section the approach already breaks down, in my opinion.
So, overall, a good pop-sci book, with all the limitations pop-sci has.
Welcome to Charon's Crossing. The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.
When …
When the redoubtable Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy is ordered to South America on business, he leaves his only daughter Sophia with …
In this epic novel, Robert Jordan’s international bestselling series begins its dramatic conclusion. Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, struggles to …
In this epic novel, Robert Jordan’s international bestselling series begins its dramatic conclusion. Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, struggles to …
The dead are walking, men die impossible deaths, and it seems as though reality itself has become unstable: All are …
