The Mathematical Tourist
Snapshots of Modern Mathematics
by Ivars Peterson · first published 1988
100% recommend
Ivars Peterson conducts the reader through the world of modern mathematics.
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…W.W. Sawyer, What is Calculus About? and Mathematician's Delight Courant and Robbins, What is Mathematics? Hogben, Mathematics for the Million Steinhaus, Mathematical Snapshots Ivars Peterson, The Mathematical Tourist Davis and Hersh, The Mathematical Experience Polya, How to Solve It Huff, How to Lie With Statistics McGervey, Probabilities in Everyday Life Raymond Smullyan: The Lady or the Tiger, Alice in Puzzle-Land,…
on “Ask HN: Good books on mathematics for somebody who's only taken high school math?” ↗…periods... it was a little bit like self-mutilation -- but also a great feeling when you manage to make something like you intended, despite the limitations of the system... I had bought a copy of "The Mathematical Tourist: Snapshots of Modern Mathematics" by Peterson. A great and fun update on math, with pretty pictures. And enough detail that I could implement eg. the mandelbrot generator :-) I'm not too sad to see…
on ““Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own late 80s OS”” ↗I enjoyed "The Mathematical Tourist" by Ivars Peterson although it might be more "descriptive" than you are looking for. I found it quite inspiring, probably early in high school (forget when exactly I got it - maybe even earlier).
on “Ask HN: Recommend a maths book for a teenager?” ↗The Mathematical Tourist by Ivars Peterson when i was 15. Years later when my wife and I combined our pretty extensive book collections it was the only tile we had in common.
on “Ask HN: The book that did it for you in math and/or CS?” ↗I recall writing a mandelbrot program on my Casio (in the awful Casio basic) in the late 90s, after reading Ivar Peterson's "The Mathematical Tourist" (actually started with Sierpinski Gasket variations, as that is much easier, not to mention faster). I was wondering how he managed to do it in 12 minutes on such an old machine -- until I realized he…
on “12-minute Mandelbrot: fractals on a 50 year old IBM 1401 mainframe” ↗