Recommend me a maths book

[Ravenbait]

I thought I'd tap into the collective wisdom of the forum for this one.

I was reading about happy numbers yesterday and boggling over the idea that someone would be able to calculate things like the lowest pandigital palindromic happy number. Then I found myself looking at the scatter plot for Pythagorean triples and found myself wishing I'd spent more time on what Dr Who would describe as "recreational maths".

Can anyone on the forum recommend me a book on this topic that is suitable for someone who did a science degree but found matrix algebra slightly too difficult at the time, owns a copy of "Div, Grad, Curl and All That" (but hasn't actually read it) and is after something that is more fun than dry academic tome?

Sam

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

There is a nice read in a book whose Title is something along the lines of "50 Mathematical Ideas". My daughter has pinched it and it's away in Cambridge at the moment. I'll Google and see if I can track down the details for you and post a linky job.

I may be some time................

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Ah Ha - got it in one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mathematical-Ideas-Really-Need-Know/dp/1847240089

I notice there are others in the series too

 

[marinyork]

Funnily enough I was trying to explain what a self number was to someone in the chat room and the badly named automorphic numbers.

What you want is Martin Gardner's material, who died earlier this year. Ian Stewart has plenty of excellent books, you might regard them as a bit too easy for you though.

 

[Ravenbait]

Funnily enough I was trying to explain what a self number was to someone in the chat room and the badly named automorphic numbers.

What you want is Martin Gardner's material, who died earlier this year. Ian Stewart has plenty of excellent books, you might regard them as a bit too easy for you though.

This sort of stuff. Exactly. Any particular one of the many Gardner books you would suggest as a starting point? I'm guessing that The Annotated Ancient Mariner might not be quite what I'm after .

At least not on this subject. Although I might get that too.

Stewart's From Here to Infinity looks like it might be interesting to have around.

Sam

 

[marinyork]

This sort of stuff. Exactly. Any particular one of the many Gardner books you would suggest as a starting point? I'm guessing that The Annotated Ancient Mariner might not be quite what I'm after .

At least not on this subject. Although I might get that too.

Stewart's From Here to Infinity looks like it might be interesting to have around.

Sam

I've read nearly every Ian Stewart book he's written. It depends what you want really. From here to infinity is more a kind of introductory book on maths with foundations and then goes off into various topics. It's more aimed at trying to get someone interested in Maths to go off and study it at university (not Stewart's intentions) as it's on a lot of pre-university Maths reading lists. It's less foundations than another of his books though. There are endless recommendations I can make if you're interested in this line.

Martin Gardner used to write regular pieces and a lot of his stuff is on the internet, it's what I'm looking for. There's also another blog I've totally forgotten about the last year or so. A lot of Gardner's material is hard to get hold of. Not being funny at all. People have said this for many years. I'll see what I can find.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I've got a copy of the SMP book of elementary tables in my desk somewhere - it's not a lot of fun though.

 

[marinyork]

Sorry about my responses earlier. It's not a question I get asked very often. If you want some popular science maths books recommendations I can easily do that, I've read dozens, but from your initial post it didn't sound like that. They tend to be fewer little bits of stuff and more topics though.

Your mentioning of Div, Grad, Curl and all that made me smile though .

 

[Ravenbait]

No, thank you for taking the time to respond. I'd rather start with something easy, even if it's too easy, so I know what my level is and then go from there. There are all sorts of things out there I didn't even know existed -- like happy primes and things. I just don't know where to start looking.

I'd love to be able to get to the stage where I can actually do the maths problems in New Scientist (and feel a bit dim for admitting that currently I can't).

Sam

 

[marinyork]

I've written a small list with how hard I think they are to read and tried to say whether they are general and so on and grouped them into topics. The first list is sort of what it sounded like you were looking for and the rest are popular science maths books. 1 is very easy to read, 5 the harder end of the popular science market, which is still not hard. The again I'd say most of maths is recreational, so what do I know. My favourite author for popular science books is Roger Penrose but that's not what you're looking for.

Entertaining Mathematical Puzzles by Martin Gardner - 1 many topics
My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles by Martin Gardner - 1 many topics
Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures by Ian Stewart 1 - many small snippets
Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities by Ian Stewart 1 - many small snippets
More Joy of Mathematics by Theoni Pappas - 1 (this may be about closest to what you're looking for).

Does God Play Dice (very famous book on dynamical systems) 4
Sync by Steven Strogatz 3

From here to Infinity 5 (famous general book on things like knot theory through to all sorts of other things)

What Shape is a snowflake? - 2 mostly general book on symmetry
Symmetry and the Monster (Mark Ronan) 4
Symmetry: A journey into the patterns of nature
Finding Moonshine by Marcus de Sautoy - 3

Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh- 5
Dr Riemann's Zeros by Karl Sabbagh - 4
An Adventurer's Guide to Number Theory by Richard Freedberg - 4
The Music of the Primes by Marcus de Sautory - 3

Trigonometric Delights by Eli Maor - 4
Gamma: exploring Euler's Constant by Julian Havill - 5

Introducing Logic by Sharron Shatil, Dan Cryan, and Bill Mayblin - 2
Introducing Fractal Geometry by Nigel Lesmior-Gordon and Ralph Edney - 2

The knot book by Colin Adams - 5

Euler's Gem: The Polyhedron formula and the birth of topology by David Richeson - 5

 

[vernon]

In addition to Marinyork's extensive list I'd add The Moscow Puzzles by Boris Kordemsky.

 

[Ravenbait]

Wow. Thank you so much. That's incredibly helpful.

Sam

 

[John the Monkey]

On the strength of an entertaining interview with the author, what about "Alex' Adventures in Numberland"?

 

[jimboalee]

Have a read of

"The Quark and the Jaguar. Adventures in the simple and complex" by Murray Gell-Mann.


Fermat's Last Theorum is also covered by Amir D Aczel.