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mostlyshanti's review against another edition
4.0
I'm not the intended audience for this book. The intended audience is professional middle class people who used to like maths but got busy with other things. As a teenager who mostly likes maths, it was maybe a little less relevant to me? Still, I appreciated it for being both entertaining and informative. I definitely recommend it to people who like maths, or who want to like maths more. It was amusing and interesting and basically convinced me that maths is cool after a year of suffering in calculus. Calculus is cool, but when you have to do integration by parts it's hard to remember that. One thing that did strike me though was how white and male all the main players in maths that Bellos talked to were. Like there was an inset of the attendees of Gathering for Gardner and they were all white males. There are like two women-- a anthropological number researcher and the crocheting professor who actually made any contribution according to this book. Indians and Chinese were brought up quite a lot as well, but there were not Africans or South Americans. I think, though, that this is more a problem with the world than it is a problem with the book, but it's definitely worth thinking about. The geometry, the statistics, the sequences, the various proofs-- all interested me and the writing was pretty good.
xmooniex's review against another edition
4.0
This is a really clever, interesting book--and you don't have to be a math genius to enjoy it. I haven't done much in the way of math in years, but almost all of this book was still extremely intelligible to me.
5wamp_creature's review against another edition
4.0
although it doesn't take much to bump up against the ceiling of my math understanding, this book is fascinating. I was up 1:30 AM today reading about pi. Things got to be touch-n-go near the end, but I was understanding most of what was presented. Enjoyable book!
sloreader's review against another edition
4.0
Written as much for the closet math fan as the person who imagines he doesn't 'get' numbers, Here's Looking at Euclid exalts and explains its subject in equal measure. Not that much explanation is ever necessary, as this tour goes exclusively to mathematics' most scenic areas and stays away from the rough parts entirely. The author Alex Bellos is a amateur math enthusiast but a full-time journalist, and he includes as many visits to colorful people and exotic locations as he does to the blackboard. Bellos has a real enthusiasm for math that comes through the page (exemplified by one line, "The delights of the harmonic series are profuse, so let's have some more fun with it.") Besides, the characters he interviews, including puzzle-makers, a slide rule collector and a Hindu spiritual leader who espouses Vedic math, are almost as big stars as the equations and transcendental numbers themselves. And there are some indispensable sections too, in particular the 1-2 punch of probability and statistics, two often ill-understood, but inescapable, subjects.
stevex's review against another edition
3.0
A trawl through the world of numbers - looking at a wide range of topics starting from the perception of quantities and proceeding through the history of discoveries, weird geometries and different sizes of infinity and much more. Fascinating in parts, occasionally a bit turgid in others, but well worth a read.
lucyhpallent's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
5.0
The best "intro to maths" book I've read. An accessible journey through the subjects key concepts with some surprising real world applications. Limited mathematical ability required. (Promise!)
davidbooks's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed all of the stories and trivia about all things math related. It was interesting how the author tied together the scope of math from who counts and why up through modern math research. Much of the "narrative" follows the subtly deep influence of a numeral system on our understanding and ability to ale sense of the world. I also particularly liked how he wove in various puzzles and games like rubiks cubes, sudoku, and tanagrams as well as understanding probabilities and chance through things like gambling,lottery and coin flips. Although he delves into some fairly complex concepts I think the author's approach was very accessible and reminded me how fascinating the world of math can be. The only thing I found funny and "corrected" in head each time was his UK-influenced use of the word "maths" where I have grown up calling the subject "math" or "mathematics". It was an amusing little reminder that the world is a bigger place than I sometimes realize, as is the subject of this book.
robinwalter's review against another edition
I wanted to like this book, but by the 1/4 mark, I just couldn't share the author's passion for mathematics, especially when coupled with surprising sloppiness (or at least, lack of concern for precision) in minor non-mathematical details.