As much as I like this guy and his work, I'd downvote this if I could since the article contains almost no content that supports the title. It's just a blanent PR plug.
HN user
lovemath
A good mathematical proof is like a poem, not a telephone directory.
She's read some of Dawkins and Gould and as parents we try our best to support all her interests but there's still a dearth of engaging books covering technical subjects at an intermediate level.
Bookstores these days only seem to have illustrated books for younger children and software books for "dummies".
Physics for Future Presidents is a great book - my wife gave her a copy last spring. I don't know if my daughter finished it but I know she said she found it interesting.
We have the the math books you mentioned but I haven't heard about the others before. Animals in Translation and Fifty-Nine Story Crisis look really good. Thanks for the reference!
Perhaps simplistic is the wrong word. To me the sample chapter[1] doesn't seem like it would be very engaging for my daughter since she's only perhiperally interested in things that lead to computing. But thanks for the recommendation and I'll take a closer look if I see it on the shelf.
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/4677.aspx
The sample chapter seems too simplistic so I'm not sure my daughter would find it interesting, but I'm curious - do you know any teenagers who liked it?
Except in this case he's only quoting John Levine.
My wife gave me this great book for Christmas:
Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality
by Edward Frenkel
It begins with the author's struggle to learn the math behind
quantum physics in spite of cold-war era soviet educational obstacles
and leads bit by bit into the Langlands program, drawing connections
between group theory, number theory and harmonic analysis.It's definitely my favorite book of 2013.
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Math-Heart-Hidden-Reality/dp/0465...