Love & Math

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Love Ampersand Math is an autobiography of sorts. It describes the story of Edward Frenkel, and how he was able to escape the oppression and anti-semitism of mid-1900s Russia (he was Jewish by law) to find a new life overseas. The book describes the discrimination and opposition that he faced, and all of the hurdles that he had to jump to become a mathematician.

And that right there is the catch, huh? Had Frenkel been shooting for a job in engineering or a career in sports or a publisher to take his writing, that story would be enough. A story of overcoming oppression to achieve a dream, a dream that is worth fighting for. But math is different. In the eyes of most people, math is something to be avoided, rather than something to work towards with all of your heart. So, while about half of the book is about Edwards’s story, the other half is a sort of manifesto in defense of and support for mathematics, a sharp rebuke of the idea that other careers and goals are more worthy of love than math is.

Frenkel makes his case by describing one specific project in math and physics, which is called the Langlands Program. I’ll leave the actual description of the Langlands Program for Frenkel, but on its broadest terms the program is an attempt to bring together multiple fields of math which seem completely unrelated to each other. The book goes through the history of the program, and the advancements that were made during (and sometimes because of) Frenkel's journey. This explanation of the program is mixed in with the narrative of Frenkel becoming a mathematician, so that the story and the math can take turns pulling the reader along.

Although Love & Math is on the whole a good read, I will say that it sometimes falls on both sides of the fine line between condescending and confusing. In particular, some of the mathy parts seemed confusing to me towards the end. I must point out, though, that I am particularly susceptible to confusion because I am currently taking a course in Galois Theory so I know exactly of the math to want to know more. The footnotes were very helpful, but still left me wanting for a proper summary or overview of terms. My advice for you is to just not worry about it; an understanding of the actual workings of the math is not necessary to enjoy Love & Math. This is ultimately the story of Edward Frenkel, and it sidesteps the nitty-gritty definitions and such in favor of getting a general sense of the systems involved.

So, yeah. If you're curious as to how and why a boy would scale 20-foot fences and go against the grain for a subject so dry and boring as mathematics, then consider picking up a copy of Love & Math. You might come out of it with a different view of mathematics than before.

Algorithms To Live By

Have you ever been a human person? If so, then you should take a look at Algorithms to Live By, a book written by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. In it, you will find many concrete answers to problems that are similar to the ones that you have. That, and also assurance that life is, in a provable and scientifically defined sense, hard.

In Algorithms to Live By, each chapter focuses on one type of problem that human people face in their lives. The first chapter, for example, focuses on "optimal stopping," the problem of knowing when to settle for something, even if something better could be just around the corner. Specifically, the setup is this: you have a bunch of opportunities—jobs to work, houses to buy, days to hunt for an apartment, whatever—and when given an opportunity, you can either commit to it or abandon it forever.

The trouble is, you don't know how good all of the opportunities are, and the only time you're introduced to an opportunity is when you're being given the choice to take it or leave it. Going for the first one seems foolish– after all, there's probably a better opportunity out there. But waiting until the last one is pointless– sure, now you know how good all of your options were, but at this point you don't really have a choice in the matter, so you just have to hope the last one is good. What, then, is the best thing to do?

This question does actually have a mathematically correct answer: First, estimate the number of opportunities you will have– jobs that will consider you, houses that you will be able to afford, time available to spend looking for an apartment. Then, multiply that number by 37%. Use those first 37% of opportunities to calibrate your expectations; don't commit to any of them. After that 37%, go ahead and commit to the next opportunity that is better than all the ones you've seen so far.

This strategy will get you the best possible choice, out of all of the seen or unseen options, 37% of the time. Which, when you think about it, is kinda crazy. You start the process knowing nothing, and at each step you only have one choice: commit or press on. And yet, almost two in five times, you'll be able to come out of it just as well as if you'd already known everything when you'd started.

The chapter then goes into possible extensions of the problem: what if there's a cost to waiting longer, or what if you have an idea of what the average opportunity looks like? These slight changes to the problem can often change what the best solution is, and they each have their nuances and complications. Other chapters have similarly broad scopes, and cover topics like how best to tidy things up, how to decide what's worth pursuing, and how in general to deal with other human persons. Each chapter feels like its own attempt to optimize some major facet of life that you never even knew could be optimized.

One of the reasons I like Algorithms to Live By is that it is very matter-of-fact and not at all judgemental. "Yes, this is a problem." "No, the solution is not obvious, which is why it's a problem." It goes into a lot of examples, and often waxes philosophical, but in the end it's really a book about solving problems and being a better human person. Even when there is no good solution, it can be nice just to know that the kinds of decisions you face are sometimes ones that, in a provably true way, have no simple answer. Algorithms to Live By has really boosted my confidence in my own decision making, and I think made my life better as a whole.

Note that I might be biased towards the book in that I am in fact a mathematician, and the idea of something being proven holds a lot of power over me. But, to be clear, this is in no way a math book, nor does it require any mathematical knowledge beyond maybe knowing what a percentage is. I, myself, have no experience with computer science at all, but Algorithms to Live By was still incredibly easy to read and understand.

So if you are currently or have ever been a human person, and would like to maybe be a bit better at doing human person things, then you should pick up Algorithms to Live By. It's interesting, easy to read, and all in all a good way to optimize your human person experience.

Weapons of Math Destruction

We all know that the future is dangerous. Nukes, artificial intelligences, superbugs, global warming, military drones, and black hole supercolliders are all competing to see which will ultimately spell the end of humanity. In Weapons of Math Destruction, Cathy O'Neil reveals yet another destructive agent of the future: mathematics itself. Well, not quite. The problems that O'Neil details are much less conspicuous and much more insidious than a hostile takeover of all computers or the collapse of the very foundations of logic. These problems lie in mathematical models, and in the amount of implicit trust we’ve placed in those models.

Mathematical models are all around us, and most of them are unfortunately complicated, confusing, and opaque. Most of us, however, don't often think about these models, or even realize that they exist. If every mathematical model ever used were perfect and wonderful and reflected the world in all the right ways, then this would be fine. The models would chug along, sorting people into and out of jobs and sentencing people in reasonable ways, giving every person what they deserved as we continued our lives none the wiser.

This is of course not what happens. Weapons of Math Destruction reveals the many, many ways that blindly trusting math can cause problems. You see, while no model is perfect, some models are imperfect in ways that undermine their own effectiveness, sometimes with terrible consequences. Models that fall into these traps are called Weapons of Math Destruction, or WMDs for short. Often, these models are unflinching in their imperfections, taking irrelevant factors into account and never learning from their mistakes or successes. To make it worse, many people trust these mathematical models as impartial and infallible just by virtue of them being powered by math.

O'Neil quickly and effectively dispels the notion of math as an all-knowing arbiter and exposes WMDs for the dangers that they truly are. Each chapter of Weapons of Math Destruction focuses on a part of our lives that is becoming increasingly controlled by mathematical models, and how WMDs are making everything worse. The book is full of analogies and examples, but it never strays far from its core argument, that WMDs exist and could well ruin everything if we don't do something about them.

If you are at all curious about anything I've said, or if you are intrigued by the concept of dangerous and biased mathematics, then you should read Weapons of Math Destruction. It goes into far more detail than I have, providing not only real-world examples of WMDs but also strategies for identifying a WMD in the wild. For an extensive introduction to a slightly terrifying facet of our society, look no further than Weapons of Math Destruction.

The Golden Ratio

Have you ever heard of the Golden Number? The Divine Proportion? Nature's greatest secret, the deepest mystery on earth, and the world's most astonishing number? No? Well, it might be the second most hyped number after Pi, and it's the subject of such things as this website, this video, and this book. If you believe these sources, then the Golden Number (or Phi) is a mysterious value with strange properties that appears in random places and dictates the rules of all of human civilization and perhaps all of the entire universe as well.

Then, there's The Golden Ratio, a book about Phi which tries to dispel some of the mystique around it. Not all of the mystique, but some of it. It addresses both the mathematical properties of Phi (like its connection with Fibonacci numbers) and the more wiggly properties of Phi (like its use in art as a standard for beauty). I think it does a good job of remaining mostly impartial, denying claims which are probably not true (like that the egyptians built the pyramids using Phi) and verifying claims that are true (such as Phi's prevalence in art after Luca's book The Divine Proportion).

So, if you're looking at all the hype and thinking to yourself wait but no that's not how the universe works, then you might want to give The Golden Ratio a read. And, if you're totally a Phi fanatic, you might want to read it too, just to see what the fuss is about. And, if you've never even heard of this number before, then you can go read something else. I hear Leviathan Wakes is pretty cool.

P.S. One problem is that it doesn't quite explain all of the mathematics in an intuitive way. If only someone were to do that, possibly in some sort of visual episodic format. Alas, that will likely never happen.

Logicomix

Logicomix is the story of the logician Bertrand Russell, as told by the man himself, as told by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou, drawn by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna. It is not a book about logic, or the history of logic, or how to live your life in the most logical manner. It really is a story about a real person, and I think it's really well done. For real.

The story follows Bertrand Russell from when he was a very small boy, and was still learning about how to see the world around him. Russell learns of the beauty and elegance in proofs, and sets off to try and prove all the things! This is the meat of the book, and it reads as thrilling a story as any.

This story is told via flashback, as Russell gives a talk to agitated peace protestors during World War II. This, in addition to letting Russell narrate, gives more direction to the story as a whole.

But Logicomix is not just that story. It also tells a part of the story of how Logicomix came to be, showing the day when Christos comes on board to help. Russell's story is presented with the authors and artists talking about what to include in the story. The whole layered narrative thing is fun, partly because so many people can interject, which colors the story just that little bit more. It is very well done.

So, if you think a story about searching for truth told through layered narratives sounds cool, then you should read Logicomix. And also I guess if you like logic or whatever. Or if you're curious about what logic even is, but don't want to actually do any of the hard stuff. Then this is a good book for you. Yep, I am happy with this paragraph's construction.

Zero

Zero is about nothing. By which I mean, it's about the idea of a void, a lack-of-thing, as being a sort of thing itself. It's written by Charles Seife, who also wrote Proofiness. Zero is similar to A Brief History of Infinity, by Brian Clegg, in that it's more of a history book than it is a math or science book. They're also similar because they talk about infinity, because zero is "infinity's twin."

The first six chapters of Zero (or the first seven, depending on how you count them) are about the idea of nothing slowly working its way into the mainstream, followed closely by the idea of the infinite. There was actually a lot of resistance to both of these ideas, especially in the West, which is made even more interesting by Seife's flowery writing. I'm not entirely sure what "flowery writing" actually means, but I'm pretty sure it happens in this book. Zero does technically go into some math, but never in much detail. There's just enough math to make sense of all the pretty pictures.

The last three chapters are about zero in physics, where it likes to cause problems. This second part seems much weaker than the first part; Seife uses quite a bit of hand-waving, and never shows us a single equation. I think that if Seife would show us the actual equations and where the zeros are, we would better understand why zero is to blame for these quirks. That said, I'm sure some people will be glad that the math all but disappears when the physics comes on.

If you wonder how ideas take hold, or like history, or are somewhat confused about zero yourself, then maybe give Zero a try. For what it's worth, I finished it in just three days, so it can't be all that boring. (Although, that probably says more about my schedule than it does about the book.) I think the best way to understand what Zero is like is probably just to read the introduction (which Seife calls "Chapter 0"), so I've just typed it up here. This might be illegal. Don't tell anyone. The point is, he remains that flowery throughout the book, and if you like that section, I think you can enjoy the rest.

What's Math Got Do Do With It?

Jo Boaler's What's Math Got To Do With It? is about math education. It might surprise you to know that I am interested in this subject. Then again, it might not. I think the best audience for this book is mostly people like me, who are interested in teaching, and maybe parents who want to help their kids learn math.

In other words, What's Math Got To Do With It? is exactly what it says on the cover: it's a book about how teachers and parents can transform mathematics learning and inspire success. It mostly focuses on math teaching in the U.S. and the U.K. and it presents actual research studies on what works and what doesn't. It is well-written and clear, and gives strategies with concrete examples.

In conclusion, if you are a how teacher or parent who wants to transform mathematics learning and inspire success, then you should read What's Math Got To Do With It?.

Prime Obsession

Prime Obsession is written by John Derbyshire, who also wrote Unknown Quantity. Like Unknown Quantity, it is a book about the history of math. Specifically, it's about the Riemann Hypothesis, how it came to be, and what it actually means.

The Riemann Hypothesis is the greatest unsolved problem in mathematics, at least according to the subtitle. It makes a statement about a function (which is described in the book) that has a deep connection with the prime numbers (which is also explained in the book). If you're the kind of person who reads math books, then you've likely already heard of the Riemann Hypothesis. It's one of the six remaining unsolved Millennium Prize puzzles, so proving it to be true or false will make you a million dollars richer.

Prime Obsession is divided into two parts. The odd-numbered chapters are math-heavy, and the even-numbered chapters focus more on history. This is done so that a reader who's just into math can only read the odds, and a reader who's just into history can only read the evens. I don't really like this split; I preferred the structure in Unknown Quantity, where both areas were present throughout the entire book. The split between the chapters removes the interesting math from the interesting stories of the mathematicians. As a more math-leaning person, I found the even chapters a bit slow. Because the people and their stories were not connected with their ideas, a lot of the people become forgettable to me.

All in all, though, I did like the book. Derbyshire explains everything clearly and takes time to ensure that the reader understands what's going on. This is the first source I've found which explains the zeta function's connection to the primes in a way that's clear and satisfying (although it does take a while to get there). I also like that, when Derbyshire does skip a few steps in the math, he takes a moment to explain that and why he is doing so. If you're curious about what this whole "Riemann zeta" business is about, then Prime Obsession is the book to read.

P.S.: You should also watch this video by 3Blue1Brown, which is about visualizing the zeta function. You can consider it a supplement to chapter 13, or you can just watch it because it's pretty.

Elliptic Tales

You will probably not enjoy Elliptic Tales, by Avner Ash and Robert Gross. I enjoyed it a lot, but I suspect I’m in the minority on that. You see, Elliptic Tales is by far the most math-intense math book I’ve read. In my opinion, this is a good thing. However, the whole thing might be a bit… daunting to someone who is not actually into math.

Let me back up a bit. What is Elliptic Tales about? Well, Elliptic Tales is a book which will explain to you what exactly the Conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer (or BSD Conjecture for short) is. This might be of interest because the BSD Conjecture is one of the six remaining unsolved Millennium Prize puzzles, meaning there is a reward of one million dollars for whoever proves it. To me it's of interest because I'm a nerd, and I want to know what kinda stuff is being worked on in math right now.

The thing is that the BSD Conjecture involves a lot of preparation, and although Ash and Gross do a wonderful job at explaining things, there are some patches in which everything is confusing for a bit. My advice for these parts is to just read on for a bit. Sometimes, Ash and Gross mention concepts that they don't actually introduce until the next paragraph, or even later than that. Trust me when I say that it mostly makes sense in the end. Also, use the glossary. It helps.

I think my favorite parts of Elliptic Tales are the ones in which they are teaching about something else. This is the first source I've found which explains projective geometry well, and some of the earlier stuff with generating series is cool enough to create a formula out of. They say you can skip Part 1, which deals with the degree of a polynomial, but I had a lot of fun reading it. Also, they reference that part later in the book, so if you haven't read it you feel a bit cheated and left out. How do I know how this feels, given that I did read Part 1? Because they also reference their previous book, Fearless Symmetry, and that's how it makes me feel.

So, I really enjoyed the book, because it taught me a lot. However, I realize that this isn't that big a selling point for most people. If you don't really like math, then stay away from Elliptic Tales, and instead read Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension. If you do really like math, and are excited about learning math, then read Fearless Symmetry, so that you can later fully enjoy Elliptic Tales. And never, under any circumstances, read Bridges to Infinity. I think that about covers everything. Until next time!

Adventures in Mathematical Reasoning

Sherman Stein's Adventures in Mathematical Reasoning (which also goes by the title How the Other Half Thinks) is a book which can teach you how a mathematician thinks. I'm not claim that it will teach you, just that it can teach you, if you remain open-minded. For that reason, I think it might me one of the most directly useful math book's I've read.

Adventures in Mathematical Reasoning includes eight chapters, each of which pose a different question at the beginning. All of the chapters involves strings of letters of some sort, although I didn't actually notice until I was almost done with the book. The chapters cover a wide range of topics, from statistics to combinatorics (which is like mixing things up). All of the topics are interesting examples of mathematical ideas, made relatively simple.

The great strength in the book is its ability to show hoe mathematical reasoning works, when actually creating new mathematical theorems. The tricks which Stein uses in these chapters—abstraction, generalization, simplification, or just plain getting data manually—are tricks which can be used in math much more advanced than this. And just about any branch of math would be more advanced. Stein chose topics which can be understood with nothing more than arithmetic, basic geometry (like, "what is pi?" basic), and an open mind.

If you've ever seen a mathematical theorem or idea and thought, "how could they possibly have thought of that?" then you might want to read this book. As long as you take your time to understand everything, and keep trying to guess where things are headed, you should finish the book with a better understanding of how all the work is done. If this sounds good to you, give Adventures in Mathematical Reasoning a read.

P.S.: He usually goes about a similar strategy as is shown in this Numberphile video, so check that out if you want to see an example.

Fluke

Fluke is by Joseph Mazur and it's boring. It starts off with an introduction musing about coincidences. Then, it tells ten disjointed stories about coincidences, which can't really have any impact because they are so short and unrelated, so that's boring. Then, he talks about math, and how everything happens eventually, the world is big, yadda yadda yadda. He hints at some cool concepts, and doesn't really go much in depth into them, and it's boring.

Then, he uses this mathematics of probability to give probabilities for the ten stories you read in the beginning. By this time, you've mostly forgotten the stories, but it doesn't matter because he just picks random numbers for the probabilities. And sometimes, he doesn't even do the math right! Like, analyzing the fourth story, he says a probability would be, "1/30 x 1/30 ≈ 0.001, or odds of 998 to 1." Yes, 1/30 x 1/30 = 1/900, which is about 0.001, but that makes the odds 899 to 1. HE FAILS TO FOLLOW THE RULES HE LITERALLY TELLS YOU ABOUT. So, in summary, that section is trash. Then, he has a few essays on probability, risk, and chance which are interesting. That is the only decent part of the book.

In conclusion, read Fluke only if you are very bored.

Proofiness

You, there! Have you ever seen a statistic used in the media? If so, then you have likely been the victim of proofiness. Proofiness is defined by mister Charles Seife as "the art of using bogus mathematical arguments to prove something that you know in your heart is true - even when it's not." Want to be free of this madness? Then I have just the thing for you! This book, Proofiness, is essentially a field guide to spotting said proofiness, and then to seeing through it.

The first two chapters are an introduction to the rest of the book, listing different types of proofiness and making silly words for them. If you'd like, you can see the silly words in my glossary. Chapters three through eight are then about examples of people using proofiness, mostly in the United States of America. Seife covers proofiness polls, elections, courts, and more.

Proofiness is a gripping book which will keep you interested through the whole ride. I mean, sometimes I chose to read this book instead of The Hike. That should tell you something about how compelling it is.

Seife is doing important work here, trying to help people make decisions which are not based on false numbers or bad arguments. He never gets very technical, and keeps it simple enough that anyone at all should be able to read it. If you feel that you should not be lied to, then you should read this book.

P.S. I got a lot of books in New York and I think I'm gonna review them all in order. Here's a sneak preview of the reviews to come!

Well, except for the ACT prep book. That's just sitting there.

T. rex and the Crater of Doom

T. rex and the Crater of Doom is a book about science unlike any other I've read. Instead of trying to inform the reader about our current understanding of things, it tells the story about how we got there. In other words, it's not just about science, it's about how science is done. Specifically, it tells the story of how puny humans with short lives were able to figure out that all the dinosaurs were murdered by a massive space rock.

This story is told by Walter Alvarez, one of the geologists who first tried to investigate the strange layer at the K-T boundary, which lies right above where the dinosaurs disappear. Walter noticed that there was something odd about the boundary, and decided he would try to get to the bottom of it. As a result, he finds evidence which might go disprove one of the most basic ideas in geology at the time: the idea that all geologic changes happen gradually.

Although the story is gripping, the real reason I love this book is that it explains how science is actually done, not in the abstract, but with an actual real-world example. Anyone who has ever been doubtful of the claims that geologists or paleontologists make about the past needs to read this book. Anyone who thinks that these areas of science are somehow "lesser" than physics or [insert your favorite field here] needs to read this book. And, of course, anyone wondering how we could have possibly found out about this catastrophic event needs to read this book. T. rex and the Crater of Doom is an experience that everyone should have.

Unknown Quantity

Do you like math? No? Chances are, I've already scared you off. For those of you who are still here, I've got a treat for you: John Derbyshire's Unknown Quantity. It's a history book, but about algebra.

Well, there go the rest of you. Now nobody is reading this. Ah, well. I thought it was a good book. It's funny, and informative, and did a swell job of keeping me interested throughout the entire thing. There's not that much else to say about it, because it's literally what it says on the cover. It's a history of algebra.

Well, I suppose it would be a good idea to explain what Derbyshire means by "algebra." Algebra isn't just using symbols like X and Y to stand for variables. At it's heart, algebra is using abstraction to make things easier. As you can imagine, this broad definition encompasses a lot. That's what makes it cool, because you can see the logical progression of ideas over hundreds of years into what algebra is today.

I'd say this is more on the math side than the history side, although it's got a lot of both. You spend quite some time learning about the characters behind the equations and ideas, which I like. Basically, if you are interested in the history of math, or in learning how the dingus people ever came up with this crazy math stuff, then this book is for you.

A Brief History of Infinity

I was very confused when I started reading Brian Clegg's A Brief History of Infinity. What I had expected was something like the other mathy books I've reviewed, so I was surprised when it spent a lot of time not talking about infinity. It went on irrelevant tangents, talking about science and people and plagues and things. It wasn't even entirely in chronological order.

I later realized that the reason it was so bad at being a math book was that it was a history book. This book is not about teaching you what infinities are, it's about how the ideas of infinity and the infinitesimal evolved over time, and about what people thought of those ideas. Of course, when it talks about the history of infinity, it also talks about the ideas people had about infinity, because "infinity" has meant different things to different people at different times, and now there are even different kinds of infinity. I guess, given that the subject is so complex, A Brief History of Infinity does a great job of getting it across to you.

If you like the idea of infinity, and you also like reading about people's struggles, then you should read this book. Also, if you want to understand all of the infinities in this link (except maybe surreals), then this book is a really good starting point. Also, it's not that long, so you can read the whole thing over like a weekend. Okay, that's all.

Single Digits

Numbers are cool. Many people, including probably you, are not entirely aware of this. If you never liked math, or you want to know a bit more about math, or you love math and want to celebrate it in a simple way, there is one book you have to get: Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension.

However, if you've already read that, Marc Chamberland's Single Digits might be a good follow-up. It covers all of the digits from one to nine, in numerical order. Although you won't gain any miraculous understanding of the workings of existence, a lot of it is very interesting. Also, I was pleasantly surprised that all of the numbers really did have personalities. It's... rather strange, actually.

All in all, this is a quaint book about numbers. It's nice to pick up and read for a few minutes. If you have already read Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension, and you want more of the same but in bite-sized chucks (and much less brilliant), then give this a shot.

The Hidden Reality

The Hidden Reality, by Brian Greene, is about the physics behind various types of multiverses that are all backed by some sort of science. Does this sound familiar? Well, it should. A book I reviewed earlier, In Search of the Multiverse, has the exact same premise.

Because of that, a lot of what I could say about this book I've already said. If you don't feel like reading the other review, here's a short summary:

"This is a book about what is "sci" and what is "fi" about multiverses. It's got lotsa types and no equations. Certain fancy people agree with the author."

So, what makes The Hidden Reality different from In Search of the Multiverse? Well, In Search of the Multiverse focuses a lot more on visualizations and analogies of the universes described. The Hidden Reality presents things in a slightly more scientific fashion.

Another difference is that The Hidden Reality has grouped it's multiverses into nine categories, all of which are easily found in the contents, that are summarized by Wikipedia. This gives the book a more focused, purposeful narrative (if you can call it that), whereas In Search of the Multiverse feels more like a ramble about the topic (an organized ramble, but a ramble).

You should get whichever book sounds more appealing. Or, if neither sound appealing, why not try Masterminds? It's super good. And, hey, if you want to get both, go ahead. They don't say all of the same things, so they compliment each other well.

P.S.: I, personally, liked The Hidden Reality better. Not only is it delivered in a way that I like more, but it is also written by Brian Green, who wrote and made movies of Fabric of the Cosmos and The Elegant Universe, the first of which I've seen and loved.

P.P.S. I think this is a record for the most links in one post that I've made so far. If not, well now it is.

In Search of the Multiverse

As some of you may have already guessed, In Search of the Multiverse is about the multiverse (and our search for it). If you've ever wondered how much of the multiverse "science" in sci-fi is real, give it a read.

In Search of the Multiverse outlines the basics of several different kinds of multiverse that actual scientists (or at least the fun ones) think might be possible, without going into the actual workings of equations. Really, he doesn't talk about anything that's not needed to understand whatever multiverse he's explaining.

Some multiverses are pretty silly, in my opinion. Then again, some people think that the idea of a multiverse actually existing at all is silly, so there's really no need to judge.

Without going into details of the specific things he says, that's all I have to say. Actually, there's one more thing: this guy, John Gribbin, has written a heck of a lot of books, and most of them are ones I want to read. Given that, I'm probably not going to read any of them, so that the next seven books on this blog aren't all by John Gribbin. Except maybe Shrödinger's Kittens, because I think I can learn a lot of interesting things from it. But that's all.

So, yeah. If you like the idea of the multiverse, and want to know which bits are not completely ridiculous, give this book a read. Andres is out. Peace!

A note about non-fiction

The Life of the Cosmos is a boring book. It is a book made mainly for scientists, about a brand new theory about why the universe is the way it is.
I found out about the book from a Vsauce video about light. It's a cool video, and also has two other books. I would recommend watching it. Micheal does a pretty good job of the explaining the theory.
This post is not about the book, per se. It's about what the book represents: a boring book about science. I just want to put it out there that I don't like all science books, and I only recommend ones that I think are really worth reading.
So, yeah. The Life of the Cosmos. I couldn't get through it. Don't read it.
I just want you to know that, if you are avoiding non-fiction books because you think they are too adult or not interesting or about boring things, you should just give them a chance. At least give Things To Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension a try.
And, hey, even if you don't like that book, there are still lots of interesting non-fiction narrative books like Don't Look Behind You. I'll probably review some of those eventually. Maybe.

Just Six Numbers

This is a book about science. It's about how the universe is the way it is, and why you and I are alive. In my opinion, that's pretty sweet. It does use some big words, but nothing superfluously esoteric (see what I did there?). If this frightens you, you should probably consider coming back when you're older.
Martin Rees' Just Six Numbers is about six numbers in physics and cosmology that don't need to be what they are. In other words, the universe would go on perfectly well with other values for these numbers. These numbers are, in order of appearance:




N: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000: The force of electromagnetism divided by the force of gravity.
ɛ (epsilon): 0.007: The amount of its energy hydrogen loses when converted into helium divided by the amount of energy in hydrogen.
Ω (omega): 0.3: The amount of matter in the universe divided by the amount of matter needed to stop expansion.
λ (lambda): 0.7: The amount of energy in empty space divided by the amount of energy needed to stop expansion.
Q: 0.00001: The energy needed to destroy a supercluster of galaxies divided by the energy of the matter in that supercluster.
D: 3: The number of large (probably infinite) spatial dimensions.

Tada! If that confused you, don't worry, it confused me too. In the book, Martin Rees goes into a lot more detail about the numbers, how we figured them out, and what it would mean if they were different. Really, this is a nerd book for nerds. Unlike Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension, it's written for people who know at least a little science (for example: exponents, powers of ten, and the fact that matter is just condensed energy), instead of anyone who can count and has an open mind.
Still, if you know nothing about cosmology, this is a great book to start out with. I only knew about these things in the context of ordinary physics, and Just Six Numbers basically introduced me to the concept of cosmology.
Anyways, I have school tomorrow, so I'll wrap it up: Science. Numbers. The multiverse. Physics. Life. Thermonuclear explosion. Space. If any of these phrases interested you, you'll probably like this book.
I am out. Peace!