Mathematics: Form and Function

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What Hacker News says

• tokenrove · Dec 28, 2013 · Recommends

  Since you mentioned you already have a strong applied math background, try Mathematics: Form and Function by Saunders MacLane for a broad portrait of mathematics that might get you excited to read more deeply into a given subtopic. Note that while this book surveys a broad swathe of mathematics, it depends…

  on “Great books about mathematics” ↗
• tel · Jan 20, 2015 · Recommends

  If you can find a way to get a hold of it, Saunders MacLane's Mathematics: Form and Function is a tremendous book for understanding how math arises from the world and reflects it. What's written here is a lot more specific than that, of course, but if this illustration interests you then it might…

  on “Striking parallels between mathematics and software engineering” ↗
• tel · Feb 4, 2015 · Recommends

  Given everyone recommending books for math autodidacts interested in learning the "breadth" of mathematics, I cannot recommend more highly Saunder's MacLane's "Mathematics, Form and Function". It reads as a high level false-historical account of how math might have been developed, in its entirety, if it unfolded in the most direct and logical way from the human experiences we all share (guided…

  on “A Software Engineer’s Adventures in Learning Mathematics” ↗
• tel · Apr 22, 2015 · Recommends

  I really enjoy Saunders MacLane's Mathematics Form and Function for sight at the "answers" this article seeks. MacLane's argument is that mathematics arises from a relatively small number of meaningful forces and "good" mathematics arises when those forces all align…

  on “Is there something mysterious about mathematics?” ↗
• tel · Mar 11, 2018 · Recommends

  Probably not a perfect book for someone at the HS level, but just a bit past that I would HIGHLY recommend MacLane’s Mathematics Form and Function. It’s a revisionist history of mathematics aimed to demonstrate how ideas flow from one to another. He eliminates a lot of dead-ends and takes a perspective as to one “ought” to move from one subject…

  on “Ask HN: How to self-learn math?” ↗
• bmitc · Sep 21, 2022 · Recommends

  …interesting entries I know about: * Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being by George Lakoff and Rafael Nunez * The Mathematician's Mind by Jacques Hadamard * Mathematics Form and Function by Saunders MacLane * On the Brink of Paradox: Highlights from the Intersection of Philosophy and Mathematics by Agustin Rayo The preface and chapter 1 of A Book of Abstract Algebra by Charles C. Pinter…

  on “Philosophy of mathematics – a reading list (2020)” ↗
• tel · Oct 30, 2023 · Recommends

  …which does just what I said above and tells a lightly fictionalized "just so" story of the "history and development" of mathematics as an excuse to introduce everything in a motivated fashion is MacLane's Mathematics: Form and Function which I just recommend endlessly. https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Form-Function-Saunders-Ma...

  on “Linear Algebra Done Right – 4th Edition” ↗