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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
What a fantastic book. The short digestible chapters and the wonderful down to earth personality of the author makes this book an easy read. The simple explanations with understandable examples and images really helps explain the topics of algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and calculus in ways that I've never understood them before. The author sums up the theme of the book on page 131 "Every year about a million American students take calculus. But far fewer really understand what the subject is about or could tell you why they were learning it... There are so many new ideas to absorb that the overall framework is easy to miss." That is what the author does brilliantly; explains the overall framework of these topics and proves them, not with elaborate, difficult to follow mathematical proofs, but with images and intuitive examples. A truly excellent and unique book. I wish I had read this book 10 years ago.
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
The books is light to read. It does not go into the details but what it does is introduce mathematical concepts using trivial examples and easy to understand explanation. The language is simple and it serves readers of all ages. Must read if you never liked maths. :)
A fun, simple introduction to mathematics - thoroughly enjoyable!
A brief book about what you learned and why you did. It does a good job on explaining different topics and making them entertaining.
This book perfectly illustrates what I love about math. It also makes me want to rank A Mathematician’s Lament worse, since this is basically the same thing sans rampant complaining, and with a fascinating concept every chapter. Lament gave me some ideas, but Joy of X actually illustrated how amazing they could really be.
I learned more about the "why" of calculus in this book than I did in a full year of AP Calculus in high school. It made me want to break out my old text book to rediscover the "how."
That said, the book is a very quick read (took me about 4 hours to finish, give or take) and skims the surface of a wide breadth of topics rather than delving into a few. A background in higher math is helpful if only for grasping concepts like vector calculus.
That said, the book is a very quick read (took me about 4 hours to finish, give or take) and skims the surface of a wide breadth of topics rather than delving into a few. A background in higher math is helpful if only for grasping concepts like vector calculus.
Fun read! I learned a good bit that I hadn’t picked up in other math courses. It started to get a bit over my head later in the book but that’s mainly my fault.
I loved this book. I always thought I sucked at math because I had terrible math teachers. They would never answer the question "WHY?" As a result, math seemed like a vague, abstract waste of time.
During the era of the television show "Numb3rs", I decided to revisit my phobia of math, and I have since embarked on a math re-education project for myself, of which this book has been a part. I now understand why a rational number is called a "rational" number. It's a number that has to do with ratios. And that a squared number actually has something to do with the physical shape of a square. Math confirms some of our prejudices about the world, and absolutely, categorically disproves others. I now understand what algebra is for, and what calculus is for. I never got past algebra, and barely passed that. But, at least, now I know what the point of the whole enterprise is. I had no idea before I read this book.
Math used to terrorize me. I remember my dad standing over my head as I sweated out seventh grade pre-algebra homework. I remember him saying "This is easy! This is the easiest thing in the world! Why don't you get it?" As I sat there and tried not to cry, because it made no sense to me at all. But if I used math in an applied way, say, in an oceanography class, doing soundings of a simulated ocean floor, or calculating vectors in aeronautics--all of a sudden it made perfect sense. But, somehow, I still thought I was stupid at math. Really, what I was missing was the "how come?" of math. When I was in grade school, I don't think my teachers ever understood the "how come?", which made them awful at math instruction. So, beginning with Numb3rs, I began to learn. I did some research into math education. A couple of years ago, I got the Singapore Math Curriculum and started teaching myself all over again, from first grade on. I am now a third grade math student, and I get it now, and I will one day know algebra, and calculus and maybe even trig.
Steven H. Strogatz, I don't know if you ever read reviews of your books, but your book is just the inspiration I needed to continue down this mathematical path. The fictional Charlie Eppes was right, and so are you. Math really, really is beautiful. Thank you for writing this wonderful book to encourage those of us who are just beginning to realize its power.
During the era of the television show "Numb3rs", I decided to revisit my phobia of math, and I have since embarked on a math re-education project for myself, of which this book has been a part. I now understand why a rational number is called a "rational" number. It's a number that has to do with ratios. And that a squared number actually has something to do with the physical shape of a square. Math confirms some of our prejudices about the world, and absolutely, categorically disproves others. I now understand what algebra is for, and what calculus is for. I never got past algebra, and barely passed that. But, at least, now I know what the point of the whole enterprise is. I had no idea before I read this book.
Math used to terrorize me. I remember my dad standing over my head as I sweated out seventh grade pre-algebra homework. I remember him saying "This is easy! This is the easiest thing in the world! Why don't you get it?" As I sat there and tried not to cry, because it made no sense to me at all. But if I used math in an applied way, say, in an oceanography class, doing soundings of a simulated ocean floor, or calculating vectors in aeronautics--all of a sudden it made perfect sense. But, somehow, I still thought I was stupid at math. Really, what I was missing was the "how come?" of math. When I was in grade school, I don't think my teachers ever understood the "how come?", which made them awful at math instruction. So, beginning with Numb3rs, I began to learn. I did some research into math education. A couple of years ago, I got the Singapore Math Curriculum and started teaching myself all over again, from first grade on. I am now a third grade math student, and I get it now, and I will one day know algebra, and calculus and maybe even trig.
Steven H. Strogatz, I don't know if you ever read reviews of your books, but your book is just the inspiration I needed to continue down this mathematical path. The fictional Charlie Eppes was right, and so are you. Math really, really is beautiful. Thank you for writing this wonderful book to encourage those of us who are just beginning to realize its power.
informative
fast-paced