Recommend books about "infinity"
December 26, 2013 10:43 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for recommendations of popular science books about the mathematical / scientific concept of infinity.
I consider myself reasonably not-math-phobic -- I got through basic college calculus a long time ago -- but, if possible, I'm hoping to avoid anything too heavy on the equations. Rather, ideally I'd like to find something more "popular science," for a more general audience. I saw some options on Amazon, but would appreciate any thoughts or guidance anyone could offer. Thanks!
I consider myself reasonably not-math-phobic -- I got through basic college calculus a long time ago -- but, if possible, I'm hoping to avoid anything too heavy on the equations. Rather, ideally I'd like to find something more "popular science," for a more general audience. I saw some options on Amazon, but would appreciate any thoughts or guidance anyone could offer. Thanks!
ZERO: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A DANGEROUS IDEA by Charles Seife deals with the infinite, as you might imagine.
posted by Dr. Wu at 11:08 AM on December 26, 2013
posted by Dr. Wu at 11:08 AM on December 26, 2013
I really enjoyed One Two Three... Infinity. It has illustrations and anecdotes that make it fun to wrangle with these mind-stretchy concepts.
posted by Pwoink at 11:17 AM on December 26, 2013
posted by Pwoink at 11:17 AM on December 26, 2013
Godel, Escher, Bach has some pieces about infinity and is overall a pretty fantastic book, but it is on the tougher side of pop science non-fiction. Most of the math is more conceptual than functional, so you don't need to have a lot of math, just some reasoning ability.
posted by _DB_ at 12:06 PM on December 26, 2013
posted by _DB_ at 12:06 PM on December 26, 2013
Rudy Rucker's Infinity And The Mind is pretty good. It has interesting and informative discussions of Cantor, Godel, etc.
posted by thelonius at 12:20 PM on December 26, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 12:20 PM on December 26, 2013 [3 favorites]
Mystery Of The Aleph is about Georg Cantor and the development of the modern mathematical concept of infinity and set theory.
posted by empath at 12:33 PM on December 26, 2013
posted by empath at 12:33 PM on December 26, 2013
Seconding the Rudy Rucker book. It's great.
posted by wittgenstein at 2:27 PM on December 26, 2013
posted by wittgenstein at 2:27 PM on December 26, 2013
Response by poster: Thanks to everyone for your suggestions . . . I'll be checking all of these out to see which one grabs me, as well as a book called "The Infinite Book" by John Barrow. I appreciate all of your input.
posted by DevonKappa at 4:06 PM on December 26, 2013
posted by DevonKappa at 4:06 PM on December 26, 2013
The Infinity Puzzle is another good book about physics -- specifically how theoretical physicists dealt with all the infinities that pop up in quantum field theory.
posted by empath at 8:03 PM on December 26, 2013
posted by empath at 8:03 PM on December 26, 2013
AW Moore's book on infinity is good. Rucker, also.
posted by professor plum with a rope at 10:20 PM on December 26, 2013
posted by professor plum with a rope at 10:20 PM on December 26, 2013
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