Take a photo of a barcode or cover
stefan_mursic 's review for:
The Maths Gene
by Keith Devlin
Listed on the back of this book were the following questions which claimed would be answered and explained in the text.
1. Are there things I can do to improve my mathematical skills? YES
2. Can new-born babies do mathematics? YES
3. Do Mathematicians have a key secret that enables them to do mathematics with apparent ease?
4. Do Chinese and Japanese children have a built-in advantage over American and European children when it comes to learning mathematics? YES
Then it follows with an non-credited Amazon.com quote 'Keith Devlin is trying to be the Carl Sagan of mathematics, and he is succeeding.'
This was one of the most deceptive blurbs I have ever read.
Most of the book was about how humans gained the ability of language and mathematics and how language and mathematics are related. Interesting enough if that's what you wanted to know. This was not exactly what I wanted to get out of the book but the author explained that he was going to be explaining this so I went along with it and decided to continue reading. It turns out that the things mentioned on the back of the book have only paragraphs worth of actual explanation or mention. I wanted to get a little bit of inspiration or even help from this book regarding mathematics and how to start to think like a mathematician. Unfortunately I read the wrong book.
The writing style is good, and overall the book is informative. Though I do find that the author spends so much time desperately backing up his arguments that I'm sometimes left wondering if he's certain about any of it himself. The book is more of an argument than an information-source. This is fine, but my expectations of the book as being helpful at all were completely wrong, instead this book is about basic linguistics and evolution and I feel I wasted my time here. I skipped and skimmed some sections and now I'm happy to start reading something else.
1. Are there things I can do to improve my mathematical skills? YES
2. Can new-born babies do mathematics? YES
3. Do Mathematicians have a key secret that enables them to do mathematics with apparent ease?
4. Do Chinese and Japanese children have a built-in advantage over American and European children when it comes to learning mathematics? YES
Then it follows with an non-credited Amazon.com quote 'Keith Devlin is trying to be the Carl Sagan of mathematics, and he is succeeding.'
This was one of the most deceptive blurbs I have ever read.
Most of the book was about how humans gained the ability of language and mathematics and how language and mathematics are related. Interesting enough if that's what you wanted to know. This was not exactly what I wanted to get out of the book but the author explained that he was going to be explaining this so I went along with it and decided to continue reading. It turns out that the things mentioned on the back of the book have only paragraphs worth of actual explanation or mention. I wanted to get a little bit of inspiration or even help from this book regarding mathematics and how to start to think like a mathematician. Unfortunately I read the wrong book.
The writing style is good, and overall the book is informative. Though I do find that the author spends so much time desperately backing up his arguments that I'm sometimes left wondering if he's certain about any of it himself. The book is more of an argument than an information-source. This is fine, but my expectations of the book as being helpful at all were completely wrong, instead this book is about basic linguistics and evolution and I feel I wasted my time here. I skipped and skimmed some sections and now I'm happy to start reading something else.