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What to read to fall in love with math πŸ’š

Anna Buianova on July 30, 2019

This year I've read several books about mathematics, and I'd like to share my experience with you. A Mind for Numbers, Barbara Oakley I...
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Nested Software

It's not a book, but have you see the videos of 3Blue1Brown? The first video I watched was the one about analytic continuation. The beauty and clarity of the exposition blew my mind.

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Anna Buianova

I'm usually bad at watching videos :) But I'll check it out anyway, thanks!

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Greg R.

The channel is BRILLIANT imho. Super accessible explanation!

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Chen Hui Jing

I've got a couple to add to this awesome list :)

  • Fermat's Last Theorem (this reads more like a novel tbh)
  • The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets
  • GΓΆdel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
  • Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football
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Ahmed Khaled

I have friends who failed to understand GEB. this make mestep far from the book

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Jack • Edited

I really like Logicomix, it's a graphic novel that's mainly about Bertrand Russell's life and his quest to put maths on a solid grounding. It's pretty funny and the illustrations are really nice, I really love this book πŸ˜‚

In terms of books that are more technical some good ones are "What Is Mathematics?", this is a general introduction to maths endorsed by Einstein and "How To Prove It" which is an intro to the techniques for proving things. It also has a really good chapter on logic that's pretty relevant to programming

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Marek CaΕ‚us

Burn math class is the one I read, it was hilarious and inspiring and I recommend it to anyone :)

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shushugah

As a High schooler, I fell in love with "One Two Three Infinity" by George Gamov. Available as a PDF here

I also love all the books by Marcus du Sautoy that shared wonders of math, with titles like The Music of the Primes

You can find some of my other recommendations here

goodreads.com/review/list/79471869...

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Alexandra Grazhevskaja • Edited

For you, being a developer who is interested in maths, I would also advise to read "The Art of Computer Programming" by Donald Knuth:
"A fundamental monograph of the famous American mathematician and computer scientist Donald Knuth, devoted to the consideration and analysis of the most important algorithms used in computer science. In 1999, the book was recognized as one of the twelve best physical and mathematical monographs of the century."

I was always upset from the way the mathematics was taught to me, but this book excited me from the very first pages.

It consists from 4 big books.
One of my professors said: "If you will succeed to read all 4 books, you can go working to Microsoft right now."
Well, I succeeded only with the first book. :D

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Anna Buianova

I doubt that I can handle Knuth :D Finishing the first book is already a great achievement πŸ’ͺ

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Fanny

great! <3

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Ahmed Khaled

Cat theory for programmers is not a `funny' book, but it's certainly a beginner friendly. I'm in chapter 5 or 6 on it and it's good. There are a good version on github which is just a little fancy

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Ali Spittel

Barbara Oakley is one of my big heroes! Learning how to Learn is one of my favorite pieces of information online

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Theofanis Despoudis

I have another one
betterexplained.com/

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Luis Arturo

Another interesting book for reading the history (and usages) of math could be "Is God a Mathematician?"

goodreads.com/book/show/3095024-is...

A physical copy worths it!

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Anna Buianova

I've read a couple of paragraphs and it seems really interesting, thanks!

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zaid015

The Joy Of X was one of my favorites, he explaines it so well and with helpful examples