Recommendations you can check.
Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford.
6 things
The Glass Bead GameBook Hermann Hesse
When I read that book I thought, 'Yes, this is the game I want to play.' That's what I try to do in the work that I do, to combine my love of music, to explain why music and mathematics have these common themes, to bring mathematics alive through the theatre, write the books I do. That's my ultimate aim, to become a master of the glass bead game.
Five Books interview on the beauty of maths
2014-09-26·fivebooks.com ↗
Logicomix: An Epic Search for TruthBook Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H Papadimitriou
But it's just a beautifully told story and also they talk about their writing of the book, so it's very self-referential, which is the whole key to Gödel's proof.
Five Books interview on the beauty of maths
2014-09-26·fivebooks.com ↗
A Mathematician's ApologyBook G. H. Hardy
Yes, it really appealed to me when I read it as a kid because I was interested in music, I played the trumpet, I loved doing theatre, and somehow GH Hardy in that book revealed to me how much mathematics is a creative art as much as a useful science.
Five Books interview on the beauty of maths
2014-09-26·fivebooks.com ↗
A Disappearing NumberBook Simon McBurney
And Complicite was really determined – which is why I like this play – not just to talk about mathematicians as crazy characters but also to embed the ideas of mathematics in the structure of the play, so they worked really hard to understand what Ramanujan and Hardy were obsessed with.
Five Books interview on the beauty of maths
2014-09-26·fivebooks.com ↗
One, Two, Three...InfinityBook George Gamow
Yes, one of the things that really excited me when I read this – again when I was at school – was this idea of infinity. Gamow was a physicist first of all: Mathematics is the language of physics and you can see that through this book.
Five Books interview on the beauty of maths
2014-09-26·fivebooks.com ↗
Mr Tompkins in PaperbackBook George Gamow
There's another book by George Gamow which also turned me on, which is Mr Tompkins in Paperback. It's a set of physics lectures which this guy, Mr Tompkins, goes to and always falls asleep during the lecture and then he dreams he's in a world in which the speed of light is 30 miles an hour so he can see the effects of relativity happening on the streets.
Five Books interview on the beauty of maths
2014-09-26·fivebooks.com ↗
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