Good science or math books to read

cs23

Can anyone recommend any material to read leisurely?

micromass

"Real and complex analysis" by Rudin.

OK, just ignore me

R.P.F.

Hmm....Not sure what you mean by 'leisurely'. But I'd suggest go read Hardy's Apology if you haven't read it. (Snow's foreword actually made me cry...). You can also watch the seven lectures Feynman gave at Cornell. I already watched them like 10 times..

Oh and of course, "GEB".

eumyang

Oh, that's evil!

Snicker

Geometry and the Imagination ~ Hilbert

mathwonk

three dimensional geometry and topology by william thurston., vol. 1.

cs23

hahahahaha

espen180

Maybe "Visual Complex Analysis"?

jbunniii

These are real math books that also happen to be good leisure reading in my opinion:

Courant and Robbins, What Is Mathematics?
Stillwell, Mathematics and Its History

Here are some less rigorous ones which I've enjoyed:

Dunham, Euler: Master of Us All
Simmons, Calculus Gems

Sankaku

I'll meet your Rudin and up the ante by one Lang's Algebra.

http://101usesforlang.com/

:-P

(I don't know any cartoons based on the Bourbaki textbooks).

mal4mac

Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction - Timothy Gowers

penta-d

Hmmm, as much as I respect Papa Rudin, I'd recommend the Princeton Companion to Mathematics, or Mathematics from the Birth of Numbers for more casual reading. Any of the volumes of Dover's The World of Mathematics are also very good. Slightly thinner books I'd suggest are Gleick's Genius book about Feynman, Thirty Years that Shook Physics by Gamow, and maybe Kidder's Soul of A New Machine.

206PiruBlood

"The Feynman Lectures on Physics" and this^^!!!! I really enjoyed "What is Mathematics" as some casual reading and it's very accessible.

Also a good text on mathematical reasoning is essential.

20Tauri

What do you mean by leisurely? Studying at your own pace, or recreational reading?

One of my favorite math books is Fermat's Enigma, by Simon Singh. It's very accessible, compelling, and educational. It covers a lot of ground in mathematical history as it tells the story of how mathematicians over the years chipped away at the problem of Fermat's Last Theorem, until Andrew Wiles finally came up with a complete proof.

dfan

That was going to be my suggestion.

jcw99

Concepts of Modern Mathematics by Ian Stewart

Mike706

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Experime...1713483&sr=8-1

I haven't had enough time to read much of it, but what I have read is interesting and a nice easy read.