Comments on: Books about mathematics for the interested layman?

Question: Books about mathematics for the interested layman?

dfriedman — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:30:29 -0800

So, physicists like Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, Kip Thorne, and others have written books aimed at an interested lay audience. What are similar books written by mathematicians? I'm aware of Godel, Escher & Bach. And that's about it.

By: Nomyte

Nomyte — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:33:27 -0800

An Imaginary Tale: The Story of √-1. Follow the tags from there.

By: FauxScot

FauxScot — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:35:33 -0800

No one author, but I do love The World of Mathematics , a 4 volume set covering several thousand years, in papers by original authors with commentary. There is a 1988 version by Microsoft Press that is superior if you can find it, and it is highly regarded if you want to get both context and content without spending huge amounts of time DOING math. I buy sets to give away. That good, really.

By: knile

knile — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:40:12 -0800

A similar recent question

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:02:43 -0800

The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution is interesting. Isaac Asimov wrote a number of great books on math for laypeople but sadly they're all out of print now - check your local library.

By: Chocolate Pickle

Chocolate Pickle — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:11:27 -0800

"Symbolic Logic" and "The Game of Logic" by Lewis Carroll. (Yes, the same one who write "Alice in Wonderland".)

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:45:49 -0800

The Music of the Primes, by Marcus du Sautoy.

By: eugenen

eugenen — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:46:35 -0800

"Everything and More" by David Foster Wallace.

By: ubiquity

ubiquity — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:48:30 -0800

G. H. Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology is a classic. It doesn't have much math, except for a very succinct proof that the square root of two is not rational, but it will give you an idea of how mathematicians think.

By: Afroblanco

Afroblanco — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:52:56 -0800

The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number

It is not an exaggeration to say this book changed my life.

By: epo

epo — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:03:59 -0800

The Pleasures of Counting by T W Körner.

By: gimonca

gimonca — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:07:43 -0800

I very much enjoyed The Broken Dice by Ivar Ekeland.

By: number9dream

number9dream — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:08:30 -0800

The book Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction, by Fields medallist Tim Gowers, is (as advertised) a short book that explains what mathematics is actually about.

Many of the other books listed here are interesting, but deal more with mathematical curiosities, e.g. The Golden Ratio or An Imaginary Tale. Not that this makes them bad books! But they don't give you much of an idea of what mathematicians do or think about.

I have given this book to my family members, friends, and to my wife, in an attempt to explain what it is that I do with my time.

By: leahwrenn

leahwrenn — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:31:12 -0800

Ian Stewart has a number of nice pop-math books.

Do you count John Allan Paulos's books? Innumeracy, A Mathematician Reads the newspaper; A mathematician plays the stock market

By: OHenryPacey

OHenryPacey — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:13:25 -0800

Imagining Numbers and Fermat's Enigma are two of my faves

By: Gymnopedist

Gymnopedist — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:59:18 -0800

Journey Through Genius is a really cool one that explains a lot of famous theorems in a way that a layperson can follow and gives the history surrounding them.

By: Camofrog

Camofrog — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 18:50:32 -0800

Not by a mathematician, but Charles Seife's "Zero" is pretty great.

http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dangerous-Charles-Seife/dp/0140296476

By: mediareport

mediareport — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 21:44:51 -0800

Surprised no one's mentioned The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdös and the Search for Mathematical Truth by Paul Hoffman -- "both a vivid portrait of an eccentric genius and a layman's guide to some of this century's most startling mathematical discoveries." There's neat detail in this NYT review, including the classic story about Erdos' love for amphetamines.

And here are a few more previouslies:

Inspiring books about mathematics and statistics?...The books should be readable by a non-gifted, non-math major.

Gauss, Escher, Bach. Give me math that doesn't read like math!

Can anyone recommend some advanced (pure) math books to learn new subjects? Also nonfiction books about math that are good reads?

I'm sure there are more further back in the archives as well.

By: crocomancer

crocomancer — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 01:08:19 -0800

Rudy Rucker - Infinity and the Mind

By: Wylla

Wylla — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 03:51:21 -0800

Alex Bellos, Here's Looking at Euclid (called Alex's Adventures in Numberland in the UK) is awesome. Bellos also writes about math topics for the Guardian.

By: leibniz

leibniz — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 06:33:00 -0800

This book Thinking in Numbers looks pretty good (link to New Scientist review).

By: Chocolate Pickle

Chocolate Pickle — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 07:29:01 -0800

Abbot's "Flatland" is another example.

By: dfriedman

dfriedman — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 07:49:53 -0800

Thanks for all the suggestions.

By: wittgenstein

wittgenstein — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:38:28 -0800

Late to the party, but let me second Rudy Rucker's Infinity and the Mind, which will blow your mind.