Things to make and do in the fourth dimension
by Matt Parker · first published 2014
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
A fun, accessible tour through many corners of mathematics, featuring puzzles and hands-on ideas. It suits those who enjoy math recreationally or are just beginning to explore the subject.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A mathematician and comedian offers games, puzzles, and hands-on activities to help those with a fear of math understand and enjoy the logical tools and abstract concepts of the subject normally only accessible at college-level study. "Math is boring, says the mathematician and comedian Matt Parker. Part of the problem may be the way the subject is taught, but it's also true that we all, to a greater or lesser extent, find math difficult and counterintuitive. This counterintuitiveness is actually part of the point, argues Parker: the extraordinary thing about math is that it allows us to ac
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Matt Parker's "Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension" is a good one too: https://www.amazon.com/Things-Make-Do-Fourth-Dimension-ebook...
on “Learning advanced math by drawing, playing with beach balls and knitting” ↗I actually just read a bit about him in Matt Parker's "Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension", which I highly recommend. I've always enjoyed math and long regretted not taking more math classes for fun at university, and this is a really fun tour to lots of aspects of math I haven't had occasion…
on “Papers of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), mathematician” ↗…Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea - Charles Seife Measurement - Paul Lockhart Prelude to Mathematics - W. W. Sawyer Proofs from The Book - Aigner and Ziegler The Joy of x - Steven Strogatz Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension - Matt Parker What is Mathematics? - Courant and Robbins A History of PI - Petr Beckmann An Imaginary Tale - Paul Nahin e: The Story of a Number - Eli Maor Imagining Numbers - Barry Mazur Journey…
on “Classic Mathematics Books for Lifelong Learners” ↗This might be a bit of a different take than the other comments here, but I highly enjoyed reading Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension by Matt Parker when I first became interested in maths.
on “Ask HN: Recommend a maths book for a teenager?” ↗…win. To make it even more fun, for (4) wager that the circumference will be two times the height to make it sound more incredulous. For typical glasses you may go up to three! I learned this trick from Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension (https://www.amazon.com/Things-Make-Fourth-Dimension-Mathemat...), overall good book.
on “The Party Math Trick” ↗Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension by Matt Parker is a fun, accessible, and fascinating explanation of how math can be a big game. The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold really is great. It comes up a lot on this website but it was a…
on “Ask HN: Which book made you study mathematics” ↗"Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension" is really fun, but it's not really tech, it's more just math. But I do a lot of work with scientific / numerical computing so some may group them together. In addition to math, it covers some interesting…
on “Ask HN: Fun Tech Book Recommendations?” ↗The mathematician who set this up also wrote a popular maths book called "Things To Make And Do In The Fourth Dimension". It is by Matt Parker.
on “Watch a Computer Made Out of Dominoes Do Basic Math” ↗