Here are 100 books that The Mathematics of Life fans have personally recommended if you like
The Mathematics of Life.
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I have lived a life filled with diverse life experiences and have encountered people in very different professions who could think effectively and deeply understand topics unrelated to their profession. My life changed for the better when I finally started to develop a deep understanding of math, which empowered me to believe that I could develop a deep understanding of things I encountered. However, this change did not occur in me until my late twenties. My current passion is to empower people to think more effectively early in their lives.
I love how it provides a wonderful historical perspective on how striving for a deeper understanding of a relatively simple concept (the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter) led to advances in mathematics. I particularly enjoy the ride the author takes us on through the generations of great mathematicians and their contributions to the history of π.
I strongly echo the book's closing paragraphs, emphasizing the importance of free and effective societal thinking. “Destroy it! Is what the Soviet censor screams when he sees a copy of Orwell’s 1984.” (see the next book on my list.)
The history of pi, says the author, though a small part of the history of mathematics, is nevertheless a mirror of the history of man. Petr Beckmann holds up this mirror, giving the background of the times when pi made progress -- and also when it did not, because science was being stifled by militarism or religious fanaticism.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I have always loved stories, and I love the clash of ideas – political and philosophical, religious and atheistic. And if you can put them together in a novel, so much the better. But I insist that it has to be a real story, with real characters, not ciphers. They must be inconsistent, their ideas half-formed and subject to change. And they must be allowed to put their point of view with their own voice, so I’m never entirely sure what the author thinks. The characters have to be people I can care about, people I can love or hate, people whose fate can cause me anxiety, sorrow, or joy.
I first read Orwell’s dystopian nightmare as a teenager and have gone back to it several times since.
Apparently, it is such a brilliant description of life under totalitarianism that, during the communist era, some Eastern Europeans refused to believe that an inhabitant of a democratic country could have written such a book.
Even today, I find the book very relevant, as Orwell develops themes of truth, propaganda, doublethink, and the misuse of language that you can find in Homage to Catalonia, written a decade earlier. And the ubiquitous and intrusive telescreen has a parallel in our age of surveillance capitalism and the way the Chinese authorities are using information technology to cement their rule.
63
authors picked
1984
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
9,
10,
11, and
12.
What is this book about?
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU . . .
1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates. In Oceania, the Party's power is absolute. Every action, word, gesture and thought is monitored under the watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police. In the Ministry of Truth, the Party's department for propaganda, Winston Smith's job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine and live independently takes hold of him and he embarks on a secret and forbidden love affair. As he writes the words 'DOWN WITH BIG…
I have lived a life filled with diverse life experiences and have encountered people in very different professions who could think effectively and deeply understand topics unrelated to their profession. My life changed for the better when I finally started to develop a deep understanding of math, which empowered me to believe that I could develop a deep understanding of things I encountered. However, this change did not occur in me until my late twenties. My current passion is to empower people to think more effectively early in their lives.
I love this book because the ideas shared helped transform how I teach my mathematics courses. It helped me see that mathematics is the perfect vehicle to illustrate, reinforce, and learn to become a more effective thinker in all aspects of life.
It is a quick read and is timelier than ever, as I believe the ability to think effectively is often not emphasized today.
The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking presents practical, lively, and inspiring ways for you to become more successful through better thinking. The idea is simple: You can learn how to think far better by adopting specific strategies. Brilliant people aren't a special breed--they just use their minds differently. By using the straightforward and thought-provoking techniques in The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking, you will regularly find imaginative solutions to difficult challenges, and you will discover new ways of looking at your world and yourself--revealing previously hidden opportunities. The book offers real-life stories, explicit action items, and concrete methods that allow…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
I have lived a life filled with diverse life experiences and have encountered people in very different professions who could think effectively and deeply understand topics unrelated to their profession. My life changed for the better when I finally started to develop a deep understanding of math, which empowered me to believe that I could develop a deep understanding of things I encountered. However, this change did not occur in me until my late twenties. My current passion is to empower people to think more effectively early in their lives.
I love this book as it illustrates the importance of developing a great love, appreciation, and understanding of what you study to make significant advances in your field.
Lockwood's passion and beauty for what he studies (grasshoppers) is delightfully shared. If this same passion and beauty for learning were shared by those who help others learn, our world would greatly benefit.
Grasshopper Dreaming is a collection of first-person musings about the ethical and philosophical implications of the author's work as an entomologist who specializes in grasshoppers and pest control. Lockwood deftly explores the moral implications of his work and speculates on about the actual relationship between "pests" and humanity if we consider all living creatures to have value in and of themselves, regardless of their usefulness or inconvenience for us. The author, self-described as "a hired assassin for agriculture," offers readers a rich account of the sometimes painful, often odd, occasionally funny, and invariably complex realizations that come out of balancing…
I became enthused about using mathematical models to understand the natural world as an undergraduate, got trained to do so, and spent my career working on a wide variety of applications. Most recently, I translated ideas from disease modeling to understand cyber variability and security.
To maximize success when applying mathematics to the natural or (for cyber) operational world, one needs to master the appropriate mathematical tools and have a deep knowledge of the subject matter. My recommendations are three really great books that will help you gain proficiency in the needed mathematical tools and how to apply them, and two equally great books on cyber systems.
This is a classic! I have had (and worn through copies) since 1969.
There is no explicit mention of disease in Maynard Smith’s book, but the two chapters on population regulation will give you all the tools you need to start applying ideas from disease biology.
As with the Feynman lectures, there is mathematics in this book – but it begins with arithmetic. I recommend it for much the same reason that I recommend Feynman because it will show you how mathematical reasoning can illuminate biology and was written by one the great mathematical biologists of the 20th century.
The book is written for biologists and has the same quality as Feynman’s lectures of having plenty of words that bring the mathematics to life.
This is a lucid introduction to some of the mathematical ideas which are useful to biologists. Professor Maynard Smith introduces the reader to the ways in which biological problems can be expressed mathematically, and shows how the mathematical equations which arise in biological work can be solved. Each chapter has a number of examples which present further points of biological and mathematical interest. interest. Professor Maynard Smith's book is written for all biologists, from undergraduate level upwards, who need mathematical tools. Only an elementary knowledge of mathematics is assumed. Since there are already a number of books dealing with statistics…
I have devoted my entire career to mathematics, and have a life filled with meaning and purpose through my roles as an educator, researcher, and consultant. I teach at the Vancouver campus of Northeastern University and am the owner and principal of Hoshino Math Services, a boutique math consulting firm.
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.
Winner of the Mathematics Association of America's 2021 Euler Book Prize, this is an inclusive vision of mathematics-its beauty, its humanity, and its power to build virtues that help us all flourish
"This is perhaps the most important mathematics book of our time. Francis Su shows mathematics is an experience of the mind and, most important, of the heart."-James Tanton, Global Math Project
"A good book is an entertaining read. A great book holds up a mirror that allows us to more clearly see ourselves and the world we live in. Francis Su's Mathematics for Human Flourishing is both…
A wind sorcerer. A dark spirit. An unsolved murder.
On the haunted Draakensky Windmill Estate, sketch artist Charlotte Knight arrives to live on the property, hired to illustrate the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke—a bright and lucrative opportunity to boost her struggling art career.
I taught for 45 years at Ithaca College broken by two years as Fulbright Professor in West Africa at the University of Liberia. During my years in academia, I developed several new courses including a popular “Math in Africa” class and the first U.S. course for college credit in chess theory. I’ve always had a passion for and continue to have strong interests in (1) national educational and social issues concerning equal access to math education for all and (2) teaching others about the power of mathematics and statistics to help one more deeply understand social issues.
The author shows how our inability to deal rationally with data results in misinformed governmental policies, muddled personal decisions, and a heightened vulnerability to accepting baseless conclusions.
With examples from drug testing and sex discrimination to law and relative risk, and everything in between, the reader is shown how understanding numbers can improve society as a whole as well as better individual lives. I’ve handed out copies of this book to my students, friends, and academic associates.
Why do even well-educated people often understand so little about maths - or take a perverse pride in not being a 'numbers person'?
In his now-classic book Innumeracy, John Allen Paulos answers questions such as: Why is following the stock market exactly like flipping a coin? How big is a trillion? How fast does human hair grow in mph? Can you calculate the chances that a party includes two people who have the same birthday? Paulos shows us that by arming yourself with some simple maths, you don't have to let numbers get the better of you.
Having majored in both philosophy and physics as an undergraduate, I specialized in the philosophy of science in graduate school–with a focus on the possibility of a “logic of scientific discovery.” Most philosophers of science have been skeptical about such a sub-discipline, restricting their theories of scientific method to the justification of already-formulated hypotheses. Others (including myself) have held that there is also a logic to the generation of hypotheses.
This is a fascinating analysis of the works of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Gilbert, Boyle, and Newton. It not only establishes the reasons for the triumph of the modern perspective but also accounts for certain limitations in this view that continue to characterize contemporary scientific thought.
A criticism as well as a history of the change that made possible the rise of modern science, this volume is also a guide to understanding the methods and accomplishments of the great philosopher-scientists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
s/t: A Historical & Critical Essay Many books well received when originally published ultimately fail the test of time & seem outdated to future generations. Occasionally, a book seen as a solid effort when written is found later to be the definitive work on the subject. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science by Edwin Arthur Burtt is such. Burtt investigates the origins of the modern scientific worldview, a view that's only a few centuries old. Concepts used to describe the world--mass, velocity, energy, time etc--form the substratum of so many modern ideas that their very ubiquity has made it hard…
I’m a historian and professor of ancient Mesopotamia. I was born in the UK but have lived in the US for decades, and from childhood I loved ancient history and archaeology (even through a five-year stint as a bass player before and during college). No matter how long the human race exists in future, we have only one shared ancient global past, the remains of which represent a completely non-renewable resource and source of inspiration. There is plenty left to discover, with much evidence already excavated and awaiting interpretation. It’s a joy to analyze and share the words and life-stories of Mesopotamians in my books—in a conversation that stretches across millennia.
Mesopotamian mathematics is a fascinating subject; their numerical system was based on 60, and the ancient thinkers were adept at many types of calculations and word problems. Hundreds of clay tablets reflect their advanced understanding of mathematical principles. Eleanor Robson explains clearly in this book how historians and mathematicians have interpreted the evidence, and she discusses not just specific mathematical texts, how they are understood, and the way ideas were expressed, but she also introduces the scribes who developed and learned it all, and even the buildings in which they worked. The book is a “social history,” as the subtitle notes, and also an intellectual adventure.
This monumental book traces the origins and development of mathematics in the ancient Middle East, from its earliest beginnings in the fourth millennium BCE to the end of indigenous intellectual culture in the second century BCE when cuneiform writing was gradually abandoned. Eleanor Robson offers a history like no other, examining ancient mathematics within its broader social, political, economic, and religious contexts, and showing that mathematics was not just an abstract discipline for elites but a key component in ordering society and understanding the world. The region of modern-day Iraq is uniquely rich in evidence for ancient mathematics because its…
The epic saga continues. Jarnland is in a frenzy of excitement. After the eccentric demise of Old King Wyllard, his co-Majesty, young Queen Esmeralda, announces a Royal Tournament to celebrate the return of our heroes from their perilous quest. The Main Event will be a duel between the legendary warrior…
I am a Reader in the Mathematics Education Centre at Loughborough University in the UK. I have always loved mathematics and, when I became a PhD student and started teaching, I realized that how people think about mathematics is fascinating too. I am particularly interested in demystifying the transition to proof-based undergraduate mathematics. I believe that much of effective learning is not about inherent genius but about understanding how theoretical mathematics works and what research tells us about good study strategies. That is what these books, collectively, are about.
Mathematics requires accurate calculation, and students sometimes think that getting the right answer is enough. But mathematics is also about valid logical arguments, and the demand for clear communication increases through an undergraduate degree. Students, therefore, need to learn to write professionally, with attention to general issues like good grammar, and mathematics-specific issues like accuracy in notation, precision in logical language, and structure in extended arguments. Vivaldi’s book has a great many examples and exercises, and students could benefit from studying it systematically or from dipping into it occasionally and reflecting on small ways to improve.
This book teaches the art of writing mathematics, an essential -and difficult- skill for any mathematics student.
The book begins with an informal introduction on basic writing principles and a review of the essential dictionary for mathematics. Writing techniques are developed gradually, from the small to the large: words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, to end with short compositions. These may represent the introduction of a concept, the abstract of a presentation or the proof of a theorem. Along the way the student will learn how to establish a coherent notation, mix words and symbols effectively, write neat formulae, and structure a…
