Name: Yearning for the impossible
ISBN: 9781568812540

Yearning for the impossible

"This book explores the history of mathematics from the perspective of the creative tension between common sense and the "impossible" as the author follows the discovery or invention of new concepts that have marked mathematical progress: - Irrational and Imaginary Numbers - The Fourth Dimension - Curved Space - Infinity and others The author puts these creations into a broader context involving related "impossibilities" from art, literature, philosophy, and physics. By imbedding mathematics into a broader cultural context and through his clever and enthusiastic explication of mathematical ideas the author broadens the horizon of students beyond the narrow confines of rote memorization and engages those who are curious about the place of mathematics in our intellectual landscape."--P.ublisher description.

What Hacker News says

stiffSep 2023

Here are a few popular science books:

  One Two Three . . . Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science by George Gamow
  Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite by Rudy Rucker
  Yearning for the Impossible: The Surprising Truths of Mathematics by John Stillwell
  Roads to Infinity by John Stillwell

If you want actual textbooks then maybe pick up a set theory textbook like "Naive set theory" by Halmos.

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larryfreemanFeb 2008

Hi,

I had the same feeling as you (when I was 38) and I started a blog: http://fermatslasttheorem.blogspot.com

I started with a sketch of the historical approach to Fermat's Last Theorem (Diophantus, Euler, Gauss, etc.) and I tried to resolve all proofs down to postulates.

I would recommend finding an area that you are interested in and then finding a famous problem. My favorite books are:

* Euler: Master of us all

* Euclid's Elements

* Hardy and Wright: Introduction to a Theory of Numbers

* Jonathan Stillwell: Yearning for the Impossible

* Ash and Gross: Fearless Symmetry

* Jean-Pierre Tignol: Galois' Theory of Algebraic Equations

* Edwards: Fermat's Last Theorem/Galois Theory

I've been doing it now for almost three years and it's really worked out well for me and surprisingly, I am getting around 11,000 unique visitors to my site every month.

Glad to see all the responses to your comment. :-)

-Larry

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