Wednesday, May 25, 2011

"Big Questions" from Tony Crilly


I've previously mentioned liking a "bite-size" math book from Brit Tony Crilly called "50 Mathematical Ideas You Really Need to Know," and also briefly mentioned that he had a new book out, "The Big Questions," that I hadn't had a chance to see yet.

It's finally available in the States and I'm enjoying it even more than the first volume. It is again a short (200 very accessible pages), delightful read for the person with a non-professional interest in math (...why are there so many excellent British math writers!?) He hits upon a wide range of key mathematical topics in a clear, succinct, enjoyable, instructive way: prime numbers, set theory, infinity, calculus, statistics, probability, chaos theory, topology, Godel, Cantor, philosophy, etc. I highly recommend the volume, and can't write any better review than the one already up at plusmaths.org:

http://plus.maths.org/content/big-questions-mathematics

...and on a side-note (speaking of Brits), hat-tip to Sol at "WildAboutMath" for pointing me to this collection of BBC math radio shows on the Web:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/collections/mathematics/

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