Here are 100 books that A Mind For Numbers fans have personally recommended if you like
A Mind For Numbers.
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I'm a writer, programmer, traveler and avid reader of interesting things. For the last ten years I've been experimenting to find out how to learn and think better. I don't promise I have all the answers, just a place to start.
The best book for college students, Newport wrote the book by looking at top-scoring, relaxed students and observing what they used to study. His findings mostly back up my own book, Ultralearning, which points to the importance of active recall over review, solving problem sets in technical classes and Quiz and Recall for essay-based classes.
Most college students believe that straight A’s can be achieved only through cramming and painful all-nighters at the library. But Cal Newport knows that real straight-A students don’t study harder—they study smarter. A breakthrough approach to acing academic assignments, from quizzes and exams to essays and papers, How to Become a Straight-A Student reveals for the first time the proven study secrets of real straight-A students across the country and weaves them into a simple, practical system that anyone can master.
You will learn how to:
• Streamline and maximize your study time • Conquer…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Though I’ve coached endurance athletes to world championships, I’m an expert on not working out. It’s what you do when you’re not training that matters most! All the books on this list teach habits that help you relax about things that don’t matter while guiding you to define what does matter and explaining ways to most efficiently focus your energies there. This jibes with my work as a yoga teacher: we seek to find the right application of effort, and to layer in ease wherever possible. I don’t think it’s stretching too much to call each book on the list both a work of philosophy and also a deeply practical life manual.
I think about this book every day, even though it was written almost 25 years ago, and the edition I read explained how to manage your paper file folders! (One of my most-used apps, the to-do manager Things, is built on this system.)
I love how much time this book has saved me as I juggle running several businesses, staying active in my hobbies, and running a household. Allen’s approach to capturing your ideas and then deciding how to organize them so that you can keep track of what needs your attention is both simple and really profound.
For athletes who need to be as efficient as possible to reserve time and energy for training, this book is a lifesaver.
The book Lifehack calls "The Bible of business and personal productivity."
"A completely revised and updated edition of the blockbuster bestseller from 'the personal productivity guru'"-Fast Company
Since it was first published almost fifteen years ago, David Allen's Getting Things Done has become one of the most influential business books of its era, and the ultimate book on personal organization. "GTD" is now shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks, and has spawned an entire culture of websites, organizational tools, seminars, and offshoots.
Allen has rewritten the book from start to finish, tweaking his classic…
I'm a writer, programmer, traveler and avid reader of interesting things. For the last ten years I've been experimenting to find out how to learn and think better. I don't promise I have all the answers, just a place to start.
Harvard-educated cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham is one of the foremost experts in educational psychology. While the title of this book may not sound so appealing, it’s really a tight summary of some of the most important principles of psychology to learning more effectively. Willingham’s blog and other books are also excellent resources for someone who wants to understand how to learn well.
Easy-to-apply, scientifically-based approaches for engaging students in the classroomCognitive scientist Dan Willingham focuses his acclaimed research on the biological and cognitive basis of learning. His book will help teachers improve their practice by explaining how they and their students think and learn. It reveals-the importance of story, emotion, memory, context, and routine in building knowledge and creating lasting learning experiences. * Nine, easy-to-understand principles with clear applications for the classroom * Includes surprising findings, such as that intelligence is malleable, and that you cannot develop "thinking skills" without facts * How an understanding of the brain's workings can help teachers…
This book is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to…
I've spent five decades chasing the same question: why does so much science ignore the human being? My story begins in a bamboo hut where my fieldwork revealed Hepatitis B virus wasn't transmitted the way the textbooks said. Why? Because culture was ignored and nuance is inconvenient. My career in biotech, pharma, the boardroom, and now as an author is built upon this insight. The Goldilocks effect in prescription medicines became my medical thriller. My memoir pulls back the curtain on the experiences that shaped my career. Curiosity, fieldwork, resilience, persistence, and the courage to ask why: that's what these five books share, and why I love them.
Feynman reinforced my belief that curiosity is a superpower.
Relentlessly asking "why" and refusing to pretend I understand something I don’t is how I’ve lived my life. I never expected a Nobel laureate in physics to champion “fun." I felt vindicated by his willingness to question assumptions, challenge conventions, and loved that he followed his interests wherever they led.
As a learning curve junkie, I found a soul-mate in his curiosity-driven discovery and love of learning. I enjoyed that he approached complex problems with humor, creativity, and a refusal to take himself too seriously. His book reinforced my belief that some of the best insights come from asking unexpected questions and exploring beyond traditional boundaries, which I captured in the Lessons Learned after each chapter of my book.
Richard P. Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. In this lively work that "can shatter the stereotype of the stuffy scientist" (Detroit Free Press), Feynman recounts his experiences trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets-and much more of an eyebrow-raising nature. In his stories, Feynman's life shines through in all its eccentric glory-a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah.
Included for this edition is a new introduction by Bill Gates.
I've been teaching math and physics for more than 20 years as a private tutor. During this time, I experimented with different ways to explain concepts to make them easy to understand. I'm a big fan of using concept maps to show the connections between concepts and teaching topics in an integrated manner, including prerequisites and applications. While researching the material for my book, I read dozens of linear algebra textbooks and watched hundreds of videos, looking for the best ways to explain complicated concepts intuitively. I've tried to distill the essential ideas of linear algebra in my book and prepared this list to highlight the books I learned from.
In my opinion, Prof. Axler's book is the best way to learn the formal proofs of linear algebra theorems.
My undergraduate studies were in engineering, so I never learned the proofs. This is why I chose this book to solidify my understanding of the material; it didn't disappoint! Already, in the first few chapters, I learned new things about concepts that I thought I understood.
The book contains numerous exercises which were essential for the learning process. I went through the exercises with a group of friends, which helped me stay motivated. It wasn't easy, but all the time I invested in the proofs was rewarded by a solid understanding of the material.
I highly recommend this book as a second book on linear algebra.
This best-selling textbook for a second course in linear algebra is aimed at undergrad math majors and graduate students. The novel approach taken here banishes determinants to the end of the book. The text focuses on the central goal of linear algebra: understanding the structure of linear operators on finite-dimensional vector spaces. The author has taken unusual care to motivate concepts and to simplify proofs. A variety of interesting exercises in each chapter helps students understand and manipulate the objects of linear algebra.
The third edition contains major improvements and revisions throughout the book. More than 300 new exercises have…
I am an applied mathematician at Oxford University, and author of the bestseller 1089 and All That, which has now been translated into 13 languages. In 1992 I discovered a strange mathematical theorem – loosely related to the Indian Rope Trick - which eventually featured on BBC television. My books and public lectures are now aimed at bringing mainstream mathematics to the general public in new and exciting ways.
This may seem an odd choice, but as a maths popularizer I need to know all that I can about why some people find the main elements of the subject so difficult. I found Doug French's book exceptionally helpful in this respect, even though it is aimed principally at high school teachers. This is partly because he focuses throughout on the most important mathematical ideas and difficulties. Moreover, the scope is wider than the title suggests, for he also ventures imaginatively into both geometry and calculus.
Continuum has repackaged some of its key academic backlist titles to make them available at a more affordable price. These reissues will have new ISBNs, distinctive jackets and strong branding. They cover a range of subject areas that have a continuing student sale and make great supplementary reading more accessible. A comprehensive, authoritative and constructive guide to teaching algebra.
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.
I've been teaching math and physics for more than 20 years as a private tutor. During this time, I experimented with different ways to explain concepts to make them easy to understand. I'm a big fan of using concept maps to show the connections between concepts and teaching topics in an integrated manner, including prerequisites and applications. While researching the material for my book, I read dozens of linear algebra textbooks and watched hundreds of videos, looking for the best ways to explain complicated concepts intuitively. I've tried to distill the essential ideas of linear algebra in my book and prepared this list to highlight the books I learned from.
This book has been a bit of an inspiration for me, and I use it regularly as a reference.
First of all, the content is complete and covers all the standard topics, including complete proofs. I like Heffron's book particularly because of the comprehensive exercises with complete worked solutions. It's hard to over-emphasize the importance of solving problems when learning, and this book has A LOT of them, which makes it an excellent choice for anyone learning on their own.
The author also provides lots of bonus material through his website, including slides, homework assignments, and a video lecture series. Last but not least, the entire book is released under an open license, allowing instructors to adapt and customize the material.
The approach is developmental. Although it covers the requisite material by proving things, it does not assume that students are already able at abstract work. Instead, it proceeds with a great deal of motivation, many computational examples, and exercises that range from routine verifications to (a few) challenges. The goal is, in the context of developing the usual material of an undergraduate linear algebra course, to help raise each student's level of mathematical maturity.
I've been teaching math and physics for more than 20 years as a private tutor. During this time, I experimented with different ways to explain concepts to make them easy to understand. I'm a big fan of using concept maps to show the connections between concepts and teaching topics in an integrated manner, including prerequisites and applications. While researching the material for my book, I read dozens of linear algebra textbooks and watched hundreds of videos, looking for the best ways to explain complicated concepts intuitively. I've tried to distill the essential ideas of linear algebra in my book and prepared this list to highlight the books I learned from.
Prof. Strang has been teaching linear algebra at MIT for more than 60 years! This wealth of experience shines through in his book, which covers all the standard concepts using clear and concise explanations that have been polished through time and contain just the right amount of details.
The book is accompanied by a whole course of video lectures available through MIT OpenCourseWare or via YouTube. I learned a lot from Prof. Strang's approach to teaching; in particular, I appreciate the visualization of the fundamental theorem of linear algebra and his explanation of the matrix-vector product from the column picture and the row picture.
If you want to learn linear algebra, you can't go wrong with this classic.
Linear algebra is something all mathematics undergraduates and many other students, in subjects ranging from engineering to economics, have to learn. The fifth edition of this hugely successful textbook retains all the qualities of earlier editions, while at the same time seeing numerous minor improvements and major additions. The latter include: • A new chapter on singular values and singular vectors, including ways to analyze a matrix of data • A revised chapter on computing in linear algebra, with professional-level algorithms and code that can be downloaded for a variety of languages • A new section on linear algebra and…
I’m a mathematics professor who ended up writing the internationally bestselling novel The Death of Vishnu (along with two follow-ups) and became better known as an author. For the past decade and a half, I’ve been using my storytelling skills to make mathematics more accessible (and enjoyable!) to a broad audience. Being a novelist has helped me look at mathematics in a new light, and realize the subject is not so much about the calculations feared by so many, but rather, about ideas. We can all enjoy such ideas, and thereby learn to understand, appreciate, and even love math.
I’ve read a whole bunch of books on the history of mathematics, but this is by far my favorite.
Singh uses the most famous problem in mathematics, called “Fermat’s Last Theorem” to give us a kaleidoscopic account of the subject, starting with the Greek greats like Pythagoras and Plato, and taking us all the way to Andrew Wiles, the contemporary mathematician who finally solved Fermat’s theorem after a few centuries’ worth of attempts.
The book truly gets to the heart of what drives mathematicians. It also is so full of delicious anecdotes and thoroughly engaging math puzzles that I simply couldn’t put it down. I especially love the fact that Singh shows how so much of mathematics came from non-European civilizations, a fact we often forget.
xn + yn = zn, where n represents 3, 4, 5, ...no solution
"I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain."
With these words, the seventeenth-century French mathematician Pierre de Fermat threw down the gauntlet to future generations. What came to be known as Fermat's Last Theorem looked simple; proving it, however, became the Holy Grail of mathematics, baffling its finest minds for more than 350 years. In Fermat's Enigma--based on the author's award-winning documentary film, which aired on PBS's "Nova"--Simon Singh tells the astonishingly entertaining story of the pursuit…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
As a full professor of mathematics for over 30 years, I have been engaged in research and teaching. Research can be difficult to describe to non-experts, but some important advances in mathematics can be explained to an interested public without the need for specialist knowledge, as I have done.
This book presents excerpts from original contributions to mathematics by scholars of the past. It includes principal developments from Neolithic times, from Mesopotamia, and from the ancient Greeks, right up to the modern world.
The extensive and well-chosen quotations make this a unique book. I found the excerpts from original sources rendered it a mine of valuable information for me or anyone else interested in the long history of mathematics.
In 1922 Barnes Wallis, who later invented the bouncing bomb immortalized in the movie The Dam Busters, fell in love for the first and last time, aged 35. The object of his affection, Molly Bloxam, was 17 and setting off to study science at University College London. Her father decreed that the two could correspond only if Barnes taught Molly mathematics in his letters.
Mathematics with Love presents, for the first time, the result of this curious dictat: a series of witty, tender and totally accessible introductions to calculus, trigonometry and electrostatic induction that remarkably, wooed and won the girl.…
