Books

[rome8180]

I swear to god I must be a slow reader or something. I average anywhere between 1-2 hours a day, seven days a week, and lucky if I get through one averaged size book a week. Are you all putting in more hours or something? I already know i'm slower than most becauese I absolutely cannot read without verbalizing the text in my mind, which I know speedreaders tell you not to do.

As for Infinite Powers, the chapter on CT scans was a fantastic read. I wish there had been more modern applications and less of the book devoted to the run up to calculus, which spanned the majority.

That's the same with me. It generally takes me a couple weeks to read a book unless it's really short. That's why I generally only get through about 20 books a year.

 

[DurhamSon]

As for Infinite Powers, the chapter on CT scans was a fantastic read. I wish there had been more modern applications and less of the book devoted to the run up to calculus, which spanned the majority.

I loved the whole run up. The CT story was great.

It's gotta be really hard to write a book about math.

17 equations that changed the world is another math book in a similar vein I would recommend.

 

[physicsfactor]

I already know i'm slower than most because I absolutely cannot read without verbalizing the text in my mind, which I know speedreaders tell you not to do.

This is my problem as well. I’m painfully slow reader for an adult who likes to read.

 

[deeyoukayeee]

As for Infinite Powers, the chapter on CT scans was a fantastic read. I wish there had been more modern applications and less of the book devoted to the run up to calculus, which spanned the majority.

I loved the whole run up. The CT story was great.

It's gotta be really hard to write a book about math.

17 equations that changed the world is another math book in a similar vein I would recommend.

I'll have to check that and the calculus book out - love books about mathematics. Another good one, and probably the grandfather of them all is 'One Two Three Infinity' by George Gamow. The story behind the creation of the square root of -1 alone makes the book worth reading.

Midnight at Chernobyl is awesome. The scope of the disaster and the remediation required over years was far beyond anything I'd expected.

 

[ZackM]

My slow reading is part of why I switched over to exclusively audio books. If it's going to take that long to get through anything I might as well get the benefits of some production value and the ability to multitask.

 

[rome8180]

I've got too many podcast to listen to for audiobooks to work for me. And since I'm more of a visual learner, I would have trouble following a narrative in audio form. NBA or comedy podcasts are good because I can zone in and out.

 

[eaglejdc117]

As for Infinite Powers, the chapter on CT scans was a fantastic read. I wish there had been more modern applications and less of the book devoted to the run up to calculus, which spanned the majority.

I loved the whole run up. The CT story was great.

It's gotta be really hard to write a book about math.

17 equations that changed the world is another math book in a similar vein I would recommend.

I'll have to check that and the calculus book out - love books about mathematics. Another good one, and probably the grandfather of them all is 'One Two Three Infinity' by George Gamow. The story behind the creation of the square root of -1 alone makes the book worth reading.

Midnight at Chernobyl is awesome. The scope of the disaster and the remediation required over years was far beyond anything I'd expected.

Gotta come out of posting retirement for this one. Math's my area, and I'm thrilled to see discussion of math books pop up naturally.

Simon Singh is an author to look out for, doing great popular-level math writing. My favorite, bar none, is The Code Book. It gives the history of cryptography and cryptanalysis - he describes the advent of a new cryptosystem, the mathematical flaw that people found to exploit the system, then the next (more robust) system which removes that flaw, and the cycle repeats.

Paul Lockhart's book/essay A Mathematician's Lament is an absolute touchstone work which I have shamefully not gone through.

Gödel, Escher, Bach is another seminal work. Hofstadter weaves together a tale of the math of Gödel, the art of M.C. Escher, and the counterpoint of Bach, through the unifying theme of self-reference. This is by far the most challenging read of the three I've described. I've started it about 8 times (... that's a great sell, right? ...) and I'll finish it one of these years.

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers (by Hoffman) is a beguiling read about Paul Erdős, a Hungarian mathematician who was exceedingly eccentric (a savant?). He's one of the most prolific mathematicians ever, and kept well-fueled by amphetamines. When a friend bet him that he couldn't forgo his stimulants for a month, he did just that and then exclaimed that all his friend accomplished in the bet was to set math back a month.

Ian Stewart seems to be broadly popular, for reasons I can't quite understand. Maybe there's something there that piques your interest, though.

 

[deeyoukayeee]

The Code Book is spectacular. Definitely one of the best books of any kind I've ever read.

And I have had the exact same experience with GEB - awesome, but the axioms and fugue logic become mindbending further in. Inception in book form. The dialogues beginning each chapter are brilliant.

I'll have to check out the Hoffman book. Hungarian physicists and mathematicians are so damn interesting, I'd really love to find a great bio of Von Neumann.

I enjoyed Significant Figures by Stewart, but it was more of a book about personalities of great mathematicians rather than the math itself.

 

[bfactor]

I'll have to check out the Hoffman book. Hungarian physicists and mathematicians are so damn interesting, I'd really love to find a great bio of Von Neumann.

I'm not hyper-critical of biographies, but I thought that the Von Neumann bio by Norman Macrae was really good, read it a few months ago. He's such an interesting subject in general that it's easy to call any bio of his great, but this one seems to be the most popular.

Another (auto)biography that I really enjoyed was The Fractalist, an amazing memoir by Benoit Mandelbrot. Fractals were one of my research areas back in the academia days, but he also did some really interesting work at the intersection of mathematics and linguistics that I've used professionally. Like the Von Neumann bio, he did a great job interweaving WWII-era history with his story as a mathematician.

 

[eaglejdc117]

And I have had the exact same experience with GEB - awesome, but the axioms and fugue logic become mindbending further in. Inception in book form. The dialogues beginning each chapter are brilliant.

Just ... all of this.

 

[Slap the Floor]

Has anyone ever read the Socrates dialogue books by Plato? Are they good?

 

[Rollins]

reading the dispossessed and emotionally wrecked by each chapter

 

[deeyoukayeee]

Simon Singh is an author to look out for, doing great popular-level math writing. My favorite, bar none, is The Code Book. It gives the history of cryptography and cryptanalysis - he describes the advent of a new cryptosystem, the mathematical flaw that people found to exploit the system, then the next (more robust) system which removes that flaw, and the cycle repeats.

BTW, I'm sure you've heard of 'The Ultra Secret', the first book about Bletchley Park when it was declassified. Great book about the decryption effort. Also great is 'Cryptonomicon' by Neal Stephenson, a fictionalized account of the code braking with a cool plot bringing into the modern day. Awesome read.

 

[Topher]

Started Dune yesterday. No idea what is going on.

 

[DurhamSon]

Started Dune yesterday. No idea what is going on.

A Royal family just moved to a new planet formally inhabited by their hated dynastic rivals. What could go wrong?

Ou, and don't bother reading any of the sequels.

 

[rhfarmer]

Simon Singh is an author to look out for, doing great popular-level math writing. My favorite, bar none, is The Code Book. It gives the history of cryptography and cryptanalysis - he describes the advent of a new cryptosystem, the mathematical flaw that people found to exploit the system, then the next (more robust) system which removes that flaw, and the cycle repeats.

BTW, I'm sure you've heard of 'The Ultra Secret', the first book about Bletchley Park when it was declassified. Great book about the decryption effort. Also great is 'Cryptonomicon' by Neal Stephenson, a fictionalized account of the code braking with a cool plot bringing into the modern day. Awesome read.

What era is this taking place in?

 

[deeyoukayeee]

Simon Singh is an author to look out for, doing great popular-level math writing. My favorite, bar none, is The Code Book. It gives the history of cryptography and cryptanalysis - he describes the advent of a new cryptosystem, the mathematical flaw that people found to exploit the system, then the next (more robust) system which removes that flaw, and the cycle repeats.

BTW, I'm sure you've heard of 'The Ultra Secret', the first book about Bletchley Park when it was declassified. Great book about the decryption effort. Also great is 'Cryptonomicon' by Neal Stephenson, a fictionalized account of the code braking with a cool plot bringing into the modern day. Awesome read.

What era is this taking place in?

In 'Cryptonomicon', modern day descendants of WWII codebreakers try to find a hidden treasure that their grandparents were involved with. It flashes between 1990s and WWII. Pretty long, complicated book, but the interplay between the fictionalized allied code breakers and their subterfuges to fool the axis coders into thinking they had not broken the code are great, and somewhat historically based. Just a great book digging into the subtleties of information/misinformation that must occur in world espionage.

 

[deeyoukayeee]

Stephenson is always awesome IMO. I was going to comment re 'The Dispossessed' that he and Le Guin are two of the truly great original sci fi writers. The worlds/ideas they come up with are absolutely crazy/thought-provoking, but not totally out of the realm of possibility.

 

[rhfarmer]

Simon Singh is an author to look out for, doing great popular-level math writing. My favorite, bar none, is The Code Book. It gives the history of cryptography and cryptanalysis - he describes the advent of a new cryptosystem, the mathematical flaw that people found to exploit the system, then the next (more robust) system which removes that flaw, and the cycle repeats.

BTW, I'm sure you've heard of 'The Ultra Secret', the first book about Bletchley Park when it was declassified. Great book about the decryption effort. Also great is 'Cryptonomicon' by Neal Stephenson, a fictionalized account of the code braking with a cool plot bringing into the modern day. Awesome read.

What era is this taking place in?

In 'Cryptonomicon', modern day descendants of WWII codebreakers try to find a hidden treasure that their grandparents were involved with. It flashes between 1990s and WWII. Pretty long, complicated book, but the interplay between the fictionalized allied code breakers and their subterfuges to fool the axis coders into thinking they had not broken the code are great, and somewhat historically based. Just a great book digging into the subtleties of information/misinformation that must occur in world espionage.

My Dad was a codebreaker. 1950-1952.

 

[deeyoukayeee]

You should read all that shit. Cryptography is so cool to learn about.