Category Archives: books

Book review: Viewpoints: Mathematical Perspective and Fractal Geometry in Art

Posted on November 18, 2011 by

This book is certainly quite different from the sort I usually read and review—but I am always interested in new and creative ways to teach mathematics! This is quite a fun book. It’s all about visual art and some of … Continue reading →

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Book review: Magical Mathematics

Posted on October 20, 2011 by

Occasionally someone from Princeton University Press sends me a list of upcoming titles and asks if there are any I’d like to review. I jumped when I saw this one: a book about magic tricks and math! By Persi Diaconis … Continue reading →

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Book review: Roads to Infinity

Posted on July 5, 2011 by

What is infinity? What is proof? These are two of the biggest questions mathematicians have grappled with over the years. In this well-written and fascinating book, John Stillwell takes us on a tour through some of the answers to these … Continue reading →

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Learn You a Haskell!

Posted on April 27, 2011 by

I have written several times before about using the Haskell programming language as a tool for exploring mathematics, but until now I had no good recommendation for people who were interested in learning it for that purpose (Real World Haskell … Continue reading →

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Book Review: The Mystery of the Prime Numbers

Posted on November 7, 2010 by

Several months ago, Matthew Watkins sent me a review copy of his new book, Secrets of Creation Volume One: The Mystery of the Prime Numbers. It’s taken me a while to get around to reviewing it, but not for lack … Continue reading →

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Book reviews: Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks and Easy as Pi

Posted on October 24, 2010 by

Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks A few months ago, Patrick Vennebush was kind enough to send me a review copy of his new book, Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks. It’s a treasure-trove of math-related jokes with a huge range of … Continue reading →

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Book review: Riot at the Calc Exam and Other Mathematically Bent Stories

Posted on January 8, 2010 by

You’ve heard the story of Rumpled Stiltsken, right? You know, the one where the topologist’s daughter is locked in the grad student lounge and forced to turn coffee into theorems by morning? …what’s that, you say you haven’t heard that … Continue reading →

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Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

Posted on November 2, 2009 by

I recently acquired a copy of Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou, with art by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna. It defies categorization: is it a comic book? A biography? A book of … Continue reading →

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New and improved: bookshelf and Carnival of Mathematics

Posted on October 10, 2009 by

Two things today: first, I’ve updated my “bookshelf” (go to http://www.mathlesstraveled.com/, scroll down a bit and look in the right margin). The books come from my LibraryThing library, and I’ve now figured out how to write reviews of the books … Continue reading →

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Book review: The Mathematical Mechanic

Posted on August 1, 2009 by

I am not a physicist. My high school physics class was taught by a man who was probably brilliant. I say “probably” because he was so bad at explaining things that it was impossible to tell. His lectures went like … Continue reading →

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