Here’s Looking at Euclid
I just finished Here’s Looking at Euclid by Alex Bellos. It was…in a word…great!
It’s a short history and explanation of most of the fields that comprise ancient and modern math. I’m not much of a Math guy. It was my worst subject in school, except for Geometry which I loved. But this book got me really interested in exploring it a bit further. It made Math extremely interesting and put on the display the highly playful nature of the discipline.
It really is amazing to behold the leaps of intellect that were needed to create written numbers and mathematical concepts. The book traces the invention of written numerals, the use of the abacus, Euclid’s geometry, and the other realms of math that are actually useful.
Then the book heads off into the territory of theoretical math, or math that cannot be used on a daily basis. This includes algebra, the cults of numerology, pi, math games and puzzles, number series, the golden ration, probability, statistics, and finally ends with the newest advancements with the number infinity (in which i learned there are infinities that are countable and those that are not- i.e. smaller and larger sets of infinite numbers…mind=blown)
There are also bonus appendices on the author’s website.
I highly recommend the book, and enjoyed it so much I’m moving on to read the History of Zero, and Simplexity. I also grabbed a copy of Flatland at the Library which will be very interesting.
Until the next book…
