Terrence Tao is coming out with a popular math book

  • Topic: Intro Math 
  • Thread starter Frabjous
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Frabjous said:
It comes out in a couple of weeks.

It was published on 27 October, the day before you posted this.
 
pbuk said:
It was published on 27 October, the day before you posted this.
In the US, according to Amazon, it is being published on 10 Nov.

I am guessing that the additional “s” slows down the Brits so Tao is going to give them a head start.
 
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pines-demon said:
Anybody has a list of contents? What are the six essentials?
From the blurb
blurb said:
This slim, elegant volume explores numbers as the gateway to quantitative thinking; algebra as the gateway to abstraction; geometry as a way to calculate beyond what we can see; probability as a tool to navigate uncertainty with rigorous thinking; analysis as a means to tame the very large or the very small; and dynamics as the mathematics of change.
 
I hadn't planned to buy this book but I was browsing for Christmas presents in our local bookshop in the UK and I couldn't resist (I am happy to spend money here on things I wouldn't otherwise buy, or buy cheaper online, to support this community resource).

First impressions:
  • It is very short.
  • It covers a lot of ground at a very superficial level (there is almost no mathematics in the book).
  • Almost all of what he covers is probably already familiar to many people that might be interested in the book.
  • I think Terry's strength as a communicator (and as a mathematician) is his focus on insight and motivation: for me the 'Eureka moment' came with his description of category theory - I never understood what this was for, now I have an idea.
 
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I liked the book (it arrived yesterday). It is a short book; less than a 100 pages of text and finishable in a single sitting. Tao discusses the six topics by how they are trying to explain the world in which we live. There is very little actual math in the book. He is motivating math. I found it a compelling presentation, and I learned a couple of things. I wish I had read it in high school.
 
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