Math Without Numbers

Chalkdust

14 April 2022

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Milo Beckman is a mathematician from New York. Math (sic) Without Numbers (Amazon UK, Waterstones) is a book that explains mathematical topics without any numbers.

Style

The only numbers in Math (sic) Without Numbers are the page numbers. As numbers are out, the book leans towards many areas of maths that are visual. To aid its explanations, the book crammed full of lovely mathematical illustrations, drawn by M Erazo.

Control

This book is well-written and explains its content clearly. It does a very nice job of taking the reader through the work of a mathematician: starting with an idea then refining it until it becomes something we can reasonably ask questions about, and find interesting answers to.

Damage

By avoiding numbers, this book takes a different approach to the majority of other pop maths books, and is a refreshingly different read.

Aggression

I’d recommend this one to mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike. There are a very small number of parts of the book that may be hard for non-mathematicians to follow, but the quality of the rest of the book will make up for this.

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