How Not to Be Wrong, the first popular math book by University of Wisconsin-Madison math professor Jordan Ellenberg, just hit the shelves. In addition to a Ph.D. in math, Ellenberg has an MFA in creative writing and has been writing about math for popular audiences for several years. Unsurprisingly, the book is witty, compelling, and just plain fun to read.
How Not to Be Wrong is not a popular math book about the Finonacci sequence or pi. It goes deeper. In the introduction, Ellenberg divides mathematical facts into four quadrants: they can be simple and shallow, simple and profound, complicated and shallow, or complicated and profound. The book hangs out in the “simple and profound” quadrant.
Ellenberg writes of the ideas in this quadrant, “they are not ‘mere facts,’ like a simple statement of arithmetic—they are principles, whose application extends far beyond the things you’re used to thinking of as mathematical. They are the go-to tools on the utility belt, and used properly they will help you not be wrong.”
Read the full post at Roots of Unity.
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