Litsy

Strange Wilderness: The Lives of the Great Mathematicians | Amir D Aczel

That feeling when the book you're reading references the next in your stack ...

I don't remember hearing that d'Alembert's birth mother was Mme de Tencin, but if I did it didn't stick with me because who the heck is Claudette de Tencin? I only encountered her earlier this year through her proto-gothic Memoirs of the Count of Comminges -- and my next read, her historical novel “The Siege of Calais.“

In Aczel's story she does not seem pleasant

swynn I should add: Tencin's “seeming unpleasant“ is not about her giving up for adoption an out-of-wedlock child. The unpleasantness comes a few paragraphs down (and not pictured), where Mme. de Tencin wants no contact with the child until she learns that he has become a famous mathematician -- at which point she tries to bring her “son“ into her social orbit. In Aczel's account, d'Alembert himself resented her self-serving interest. With justice say I (edited) 3mo

18 likes1 comment

swynn

Strange Wilderness: The Lives of the Great Mathematicians | Amir D Aczel

so-so

(2011) It's a popular history of Western mathematics light on mathematical detail and heavy on biographical anecdotes. Some favorite stories are included: the Cardano-Tartaglia and Newton-Leibniz feuds, Galois's stupid and romantic death at 20, the Bourbaki pranksters and Grothendieck's reclusiveness. But for me the stories were familiar and Aczel's retelling didn't add much. I'd have liked more math, but that's not the kind of book this is.

26 likes

BookMack

The Little Book of Mathematical Principles, Theories & Things | Robert Solomon

pick

A compact, accessible guide to big math ideas. Great for curious minds who want bite-sized insights into the logic behind the numbers. Clever and concise.

bookishbitch

Mental Gymnastics: Recreational Mathematics Puzzles | Dick Hess

Yay! Now I can call myself a gymnast. 😂

BookmarkTavern Going for the gold! 🏅 4mo

AmyG Hahahaha I saw this. I thought the same thing. 4mo

15 likes2 comments

rwmg

Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction | Timothy Gowers

pick

The author says in the preface that the book should be accessible to anybody with a maths GCSE. Apparently a maths GCSE is more difficult than a maths O Level. I kept my head above water (I think) till Chapter 6 when we hit geometry, which was my downfall with school maths as well. I just skimmed Chapter 7 on estimates and approximations but re-surfaced with the FAQ in the final chapter, which was more about mathematicians than mathematics.

TheBookHippie I still have nightmares about geometry class…😂😩 9mo

Bookwormjillk I was a really good math student (if you don‘t count geometry.) 9mo

dabbe I'm just the opposite. I adored geometry but was horrible at algebra--especially story problems like the one below.

If a train leaves the station with 5 carts of bananas and drives west for 250 miles, how many mangos does he have? 😂 9mo

rwmg @dabbe Since I was already a reader with a penchant for mysteries, I felt I was on familiar territory with algebra and story problems, but as somebody with poor spatial sense it was a struggle to relate geometry and trigonometry to anything I was familiar with. 9mo

29 likes4 comments

rwmg

Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction | Timothy Gowers

#coffeeandabook

28 likes

Kaylee.Phillips2

Squares, Rectangles, and Other Quadrilaterals | David A. Adler

“one arm of a right angle is perfectly horizontal, the other is perfectly vertical“

Kaylee.Phillips2

Squares, Rectangles, and Other Quadrilaterals | David A. Adler

I would use this when discussion math topics in the classroom because it helps children understand the properties of these shapes, such as their sides and angles, in an accessible and engaging way. The book is an excellent resource for teaching basic geometry concepts to early learners.

Kaylee.Phillips2

Squares, Rectangles, and Other Quadrilaterals | David A. Adler

pick

Squares, Rectangles, and Other Quadrilaterals by David A. Adler is a nonfiction children's book that introduces young readers to the concept of quadrilaterals, a type of polygon with four sides. Through clear, simple explanations and colorful illustrations, the book explores different types of quadrilaterals, including squares, rectangles, parallelograms, and rhombuses.