It’s difficult for non-mathematicians to appreciate the sheer joy of finding, or understanding, a mathematical proof. I’m not a mathematician, but I like the subject and studied engineering which is about 80% applied maths, so I’ve got a good idea of what it’s like, I think. Finding a particularly good algorithm in a computer program is the nearest I get to it nowadays, but that still gives me a great kick, easily comparable to scoring that perfect goal at football.
This book aims, very laudably, to bring some of this pleasure to the uninitiated.
Unfortunately the book doesn’t really deliver on the excitement and the pure intellectual pleasure of the subject. Instead it flits from topic to topic, piling on the theorems and the propositions without ever quite managing to stop and step back to enjoy it. Even a relatively simple proof, such as Pythagoras, can be used as a springboard to discuss the ideas of elegance, simplicity, notation and so on. Instead this book ends up reading like the dry maths text book it so obviously wants to avoid. It’s a real shame, because there’s an air of rampant anti-intellectualism about, and an ignorance of maths means that ideologues and Daily Mail readers can never tell sense from nonsense when it comes to numbers.
A much better book, for those interested, is Fermat’s Last Theorem. This gives a much better idea of who mathematicians are, what they look for in a proof and manages to touch on numerous diverse topics (including number theory, probability etc).
In this day and age, when politicians use science and statistics in the way that they used to appeal to God as the final arbiter of right and wrong, it is more important than ever to strip away the mystique of number. And remember, it's not just populist politicians on the make we should be wary of, there are also those on the left who mistrust maths, science and rationalism.
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