I wrote a review of Measurement by Paul Lockhart for the winter 2012-2013 issue of Columbia Magazine.
“Many popular books and articles aim to tie mathematics to everyday life: calculus is used to study income inequality, game theory explains international politics, and limits are used to figure out compound interest. Lockhart takes a different approach. To him, mathematics is an alternate world, a theoretical realm filled with impossibly perfect forms. Shapes inhabit a sort of Platonic domain: the circles he cares about are ideals, all the infinitely small points exactly the same distance from the center. But in the real world, even a ‘circle etched in gold by a laser to within a billionth of an inch’ falls short of that ideal. It’s made of atoms that aren’t infinitely small. The atoms all have size and weight, and if that weren’t enough, they won’t stop jiggling around.”
Read the full review at the Columbia Magazine website.
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