This is a whistlestop tour through some of the more interesting uses of mathematics. As usual with such things, it left me wanting more depth. You could not ask for more breadth! From economics to correcting errors in digital communication, from astrophysics to topology, from electoral systems to significance to social networks to double-crossing spies, this book has an extraordinary range. Mostly it is well written so that I understood the maths although Elwes has an infuriating tendency to use different (often undeclared) bases for his logarithms. Sometimes he offers results without backing them up sufficiently (at least for my taste). But I am not a general reader and I think that, for the general reader, this book will provide a brilliant introduction to the ubiquity of maths.
Breathless. June 2015; 363 pages
No comments:
Post a Comment