Books like Our Days Are Numbered — picked by fans

The author explains the importance of abstraction in logic, demonstrating its three main components: paths made of long chains of logic, packages made of a collection of concepts structured into a new compound unit, and pivots to build bridges to previously disconnected places.

Eugenia Cheng does an excellent job of abstracting principles of logic to better understand challenging real-world societal issues such as affirmative action and cancer screening. I found it quite compelling to understand how and why she came to her positions on various issues, through her axiom that "avoiding false negatives is more important than avoiding false positives." I appreciated the expertise by which she weaved numerous hard topics, in both mathematics and social justice, into a coherent and compelling narrative.

This remarkable book is authored by Francis Su, the past president of the Mathematical Association of America. The author describes human flourishing as follows: “a wholeness of being and doing, of realizing one’s potential and helping others do the same, of acting with honour and treating others with dignity.” He explains how human beings, of all ages and ability levels, can experience flourishing through the doing of mathematics.

In each of the final twelve chapters, the author explores a trait of mathematics, how it relates to our journey as humans, and how the development of each trait enables us to flourish: Exploration, Meaning, Play, Beauty, Permanence, Truth, Struggle, Power, Justice, Freedom, Community, Love. As a mathematical researcher and educator, I have experienced these traits first-hand, and recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

Can you love a book that you disagree with? I do! I love this extravagant account of how Bayesian Statistics was enmired in controversy and, after 200 years, saved everything from Western Civilization to Captain Dreyfus.

I don’t think that Bayesian statistics is the foundation of all rational thought, but I am happy to celebrate all its wonderful achievements. Every page of this book is lively and personal, engrossing, entertaining, masterful…all of that.

John Urschel is an African-American mathematician specializing in graph theory, who recently completed his Ph.D. in mathematics at MIT. But he is better known for his football career, as a starting offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens. Six of Urschel’s papers were completed while he was still in the National Football League.

Mind and Matter is John Urschel’s memoir, co-authored with his wife Louisa Thomas. Each chapter alternates between football and mathematics, and how his success on the field translated to success in the classroom, and vice-versa. I loved how accessible the book is, for readers of all ages, and I fully agree with the author’s perspective that mathematics gives us a way of making sense of the world, and helping us see past the confusion of everyday life.

I love this book because it opened up doors in my mind, which I did not know they exist.

For a long time, I thought that I had a split set of ambitions. On one side, I was fascinated by mathematics and its connection to theoretical physics. On the other side, I was drawn to art, to live as part of the community of artists.

With this book, Marcus de Sautoy showed me in detail how art did pave the way to formal theoretical innovations, how my two sides are the same stupefying property of human exploratory understanding. To trust in this property of the human species is an elementary ingredient for the optimism needed to master the upcoming epistemological break!   

This unique book presents stories about mathematics, such as The Young Archimedes by Aldous Huxley and Peter Learns Arithmetic by H. G. Wells. It and its sequel are a mine of fascinating short stories.

It's well worth keeping and rereading. I found both it and its sequel fun to read.

This book is full of beautiful puzzles on a mathematical topic called pursuit evasion. Its author Paul Nahin has written tens of books in physics and mathematics.

Nahin's writing can be described as a captivating reading experience pulling readers into his world like a whirlpool. His appreciation of mathematics, physics, and the people who discover them is unmatchable. It seems like the physics of motion and the mathematics of calculus is inseparable, as can be witnessed in the book.

The calculus used in this book is heavy. Nevertheless, Nahin makes his readers fall in love with this big beast. Almost every puzzle in this book is aesthetically beautiful and gives readers a deep sense of satisfaction. My favorites include Lady in the Lake, and Lion and Man.

Discover Condorcet!

Most people, when asked to name a philosopher who wrote about inequality, would think of Rousseau. Condorcet was the last of the Encyclopédistes, young enough to experience the revolution in 1789—sadly, also one of its victims.

Unlike his philosopher colleagues, he participated actively in public policymaking, first in the Ministry of Finance, later as an elected member of the Legislative Assembly after the revolution. He chaired an organization working for the abolition of slavery. He argued for equal rights for women before Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft had published their more well-known pamphlets. He co-authored the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and also wrote a proposal for new constitution for France.

Most importantly, he realized the fundamental role of education as a means to reduce inequality and liberate mankind, and he even developed curricula for the various stages of a general… show more.

Having read or browsed many books dedicated to the mathematics of options and other derivative instruments, I unquestionably consider Neftci’s book as by far the best choice.

Starting with the fundamentals, it goes much further than a simple “introduction”, and typically fits with the needs of a “quant” specializing in options, with a good balance between pure theoretical, mathematical developments (such as Partial Differential Equations, Girsanov theorem, Markov processes, etc) and practical applications on option pricing. 

I love this book because it illustrates how a deep understanding of one subject area (mathematics) can help develop a deeper understanding of another (biology). This is a common theme in my teaching. I love how the author links the two fields of mathematics and biology in a way that is accessible to people in both fields.

This book will extend the knowledge of anyone working in the interdisciplinary area of mathematical biology and encourage the reader to see the value of viewing the world through interdisciplinary eyes.