Plus.Maths.org
book review
When Gems of Geometry arrived through the post it seemed the Gods had conspired to despatch the perfect book for me to review. Like the author, John Barnes, I have a fascination with Edwin Abbot Abbot’s Flatland and spent many childhood hours gluing paper models of fantastical geometric constructions together.
Computing is at the heart of our modern world, but what are its frontiers? This book presents new trends in this fast growing field. Although the topics covered range from spacecraft control to embedding intelligence in bacteria, they all coincide in one fundamental point: the future of computing is a synthesis with nature.
Ian Stewart's latest book guides us through the recent collision of mathematics and biology. This is not a book about mathematics with a bit of biology sprinkled on afterwards – Mathematics of life weaves a history of biology with examples of how mathematics can help solve the unanswered questions that were created along the way. Mathematics, Stewart argues, will be the next biological revolution.
Benjamin Wardhaug's book is entitled How to read historical mathematics and this is precisely what it is about. It is an introduction to the marvellous world of the history of mathematics, aimed at the general public. You will not learn a lot either about mathematics or its history, but you will be much better prepared for reading old mathematical masterpieces after this book.
This is an excellently researched and well-written book. It distinguishes itself from the body of popular science books by interspersing and motivating the mathematics it contains using stories, interviews and conversations with a variety of people, ranging from mathematicians and linguists to mystics. The result is a mixture of journalism, travel literature and mathematical history that will have a much wider appeal than many other accessible texts on mathematics.
This book is a mixture between an encyclopedia and a collection of intriguing ideas. In some sense, it's a plain English encyclopedia of maths, embellished with some examples for entertainment. So whether you're trying to get at the "true" meaning of something textbooks only define using passionless symbols, or are looking for a little diversion before going to sleep, this book can give you both.
This book tells the fascinating story of strange geometric objects that have achieved some fame outside of maths and even inspired a Woody Allen joke: they're called Calabi-Yau manifolds. When Plus recently interviewed one of its authors he was adamant that maths should be brought to the masses without dumbing down or glossing over the tricky parts. And this is just what this books sets out to achieve.
The sense of going on a journey with a brilliant and entertaining companion, of feeling like you are never sure why the conversation is veering in this new direction, yet being confident that there is a good reason for it, is the strongest sense which I got from this lovely new book by Marcus du Sautoy.
Maths for mums and dads by Rob Eastaway and Mike Askew. This book is an absolute triumph. Given the authors' reputations, I would expect nothing less, so it is something of a relief to be able to write that first sentence.
In these days of debates on climate change we're often reminded of that other great clash between science and authority, the staunch refusal by the Catholic church to accept that the Earth moves around the Sun.
I am the first person to admit I don't have an artistic bone in my body. In fact I find it difficult to think visually at all, let alone imagining shapes and structures in three dimensions.
Sustainable energy - without the hot air by David MacKay A lot is written about energy efficiency and renewable energy, but do the sums add up?