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From the New York Times-bestselling author of How Not to Be Wrong—himself a world-class geometer—a far-ranging exploration of the power of geometry, which turns out to help us think better about practically everything a connected graph stays connected only if the connections at each point >=2, interesting to think what this says about friendships and networks I thoroughly enjoy Ellenberg's style (and his hand-drawn pictures/diagrams to aid with explanations), which is friendly and not overly formal. But he is also careful to state things in a way that aren't so simplified they are no longer true. There's a difficult balance and I think Ellenberg manages it quite well. I learn a lot from seeing his presentation of an issue, even if I was already somewhat familiar with it. The book is supposedly about geometry, although I found the relation sometimes tangential. Anyway, it was engaging and mind-opening. If you'd like to know about many applications of mathematics in real life (with a hint of geometry), this book can be a good choice.
the hilarious story of how the Electoral College came about as an exhausted compromise rather than the brilliant design we tout it to be He focuses a lot on the history of geometry and that was mostly boring. Lots of names that I will never remember.
Imagine a 2D or 3D shape. Can your child guess which shape you are thinking of by asking questions about its properties? Can they draw or make it from modelling dough just from your description? Can they identify shapes by touch alone? If you’re like most people, geometry is a sterile and dimly remembered exercise you gladly left behind in the dust of ninth grade, along with your braces and active romantic interest in pop singers. If you recall any of it, it’s plodding through a series of miniscule steps only to prove some fact about triangles that was obvious to you in the first place. That’s not geometry. Okay, it isgeometry, but only a tiny part, which has as much to do with geometry in all its flush modern richness as conjugating a verb has to do with a great novel.
From the New York Times-bestselling author of How Not to Be Wrong—himself a world-class geometer—a far-ranging exploration of the power of geometry, which turns out to help us think better about practically everything.
Geometry activity books
the twenty-six smallest states, whose fifty-two representatives make up a majority of the Senate, speak for just 18% of the population. This is a difficult book to rate, but is in the 3-4 range for me. The issue is that of the difficulty of the material itself. I don't believe the book makes claims of being accessible to non-mathematicians, and it certainly reads well in a general sense, but the material covers so many aspects of geometry that it is very difficult to stay with it. Ellenberg's other book that I have read, How Not To Be Wrong, is much more accessible overall. This was just all over the place for me. At times, it was a two star read and somewhat boring (quite possibly because I know most of the math Ellenberg is describing); at times, it was a wonderful application of mathematical principles.
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