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Number: The Language of ScienceBook

by Tobias Dantzig

Who uses, recommends or left Number: The Language of Science, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

1 person

Computer science professor at Georgetown and author of Deep Work, Digital Minimalism and Slow Productivity; writes at calnewport.com.
liked

Though the book perhaps gets a little too math-ey by the end (and this is coming from someone who is literally teaching discrete mathematics to university students at the moment), Dantzig provides a compelling overview of what we mean when we talk about "numbers," and why this is a question that we must repeatedly keep re-visiting.

One of his monthly posts listing the five books he finished, with a short verdict on each.

2021-12-03·calnewport.com ↗

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:

Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.