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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
Shape by Jordan Ellenberg--It's almost always delightful to see someone take their knowledge and passion for a subject and share it with the world. Shape does this in spades, taking geometry and finding the joy of it in both the everyday and the complex. Ellenberg begins by walking through the satisfaction of knowing something is true through proofs, then embarks on a whirlwind world tour of checkers, COVID-19, elections, mosquitos, machine learning, Survivor, straws, and much much more. It's inviting, entertaining, and educational. Two thumbs up.
Informative and wildly readable
Lots of great stuff in here touching on topics ranging from card shuffling to saving democracy, presented in a witty manner that teaches - easy without being facile.
Lots of great stuff in here touching on topics ranging from card shuffling to saving democracy, presented in a witty manner that teaches - easy without being facile.
challenging
informative
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
While I never had Ellenberg as my professor, I thought it might be an interesting read. As with most math books, it meanders quite a bit (perhaps a bit more than I would like). I will say, it leaves less loose ends than I’ve seen in other math popsci books. But, I’m starting to think that these sort of books are actually NOT for me. I just don’t glean as much enjoyment as I do from other genres.
I did really enjoy the conversation on gerrymandering though :)
I did really enjoy the conversation on gerrymandering though :)
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Ellenberg twice now, with this and How Not To Be Wrong, has brought a disarming, conversational style. I love how he peppers these mathematical excursions with stories about the people that first made them, humanizing the field from both directions.
This one, though, is a bit scatterbrained; so many different things in math can be called "geometry" by some connection or other, and so there doesn't end up being much of a throughline here. He also often doesn't quite come to a particular conclusion - many explorations open interesting questions, but then don't really bring them back to reality. He discusses modeling the spread of pandemics in many different ways, for example, but doesn't end up giving any advice that might help someone determine which models/advice to trust as a layman.
Still, by way of joyously opening a door into topics that are crucial to understanding our world and yet often feel esoteric and unapproachable, Ellenberg's books are delightful and important. Anyone who finds the topics this book covers interesting will absolutely enjoy the read and come away with new connections and ideas to explore.
This one, though, is a bit scatterbrained; so many different things in math can be called "geometry" by some connection or other, and so there doesn't end up being much of a throughline here. He also often doesn't quite come to a particular conclusion - many explorations open interesting questions, but then don't really bring them back to reality. He discusses modeling the spread of pandemics in many different ways, for example, but doesn't end up giving any advice that might help someone determine which models/advice to trust as a layman.
Still, by way of joyously opening a door into topics that are crucial to understanding our world and yet often feel esoteric and unapproachable, Ellenberg's books are delightful and important. Anyone who finds the topics this book covers interesting will absolutely enjoy the read and come away with new connections and ideas to explore.
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
I loved Ellenberg’s first book and so I was eager to grab this follow up— though I’d agree with others’ assessments I see here that it wasn’t quite as good this time. Too often I felt like I was reading small versions of many different interesting books that I’d rather dive into as a whole treatise from the author in book length (gerrymandering, disease spread being the key ones). So it did feel a bit disjointed at times, and I wish there was more coverage of Nauru rally occurring geometric shapes in nature, biology, etc. But in the end, lots of profound and thought provoking nuggets of ideas that made this worthwhile. And while I’ve always loved math, this did indeed serve to validate that not studying mathematics and the very advanced level was probably the right move!