Logo

Thoughts on the World

  • Sites
    • Personal Site
    • Business Site
    • Photography Site
    • Agile Architect
  • Site Map
    • Welcome / Home Page
      Contact Me
      Search the Site
      Thoughts on the World
      Consultancy Services
      Blog
      Publications and Papers
      Photography
      Projects and Products
      Reviews
      Links
  • Search
    • References to www.andrewj.com
    • References to www.agilearchitect.org
  • Contact Me
    • Email me
    • @TweetAndrewJ
    • Others
  • Feeds
    • @TweetAndrewJ
    • Thoughts on the World (Main Feed)
    • Main feed (direct XML)
    • Professional Blog
    • Photo Blog
    • Photo Album
    • Review pages
    • Subcribers
    • About my feeds
  • Blog Indexes
    • Favourite/Major Articles
    • All Articles by Category
    • All Articles by Title
    • Review Index
  • Share
    • Facebook Google Twitter Linked In Yammer
    • Share

Seventeen Equations That Changed The World

By Ian Stewart

Posted on 27 May 2012 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Summary


How do the rankings work?
Content 9/10
Readability 7/10
Presentation 8/10
Ideas 8/10
Value for money 8/10
Did it do what it said on the box? 8/10

The Review

Inspiring but occasionally challenging look at the maths behind the modern world

Stephen Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time with only a single equation, accepting that more might “scare the punters off”. Bill Bryson wrote A Short History of Nearly Everything with neither equations nor pictures. Ian Stewart is therefore being very brave writing a popular science book which explains the mathematical basis for our modern world, unashamedly focusing on the key equations themselves.

That said, the equations are used more as milestones than intensively studied subjects. This is not a “book full of maths”, and each chapter is largely a textual exploration around the subject starring the featured equation, explaining what it means, and what it led to.

The scope is vast, from Pythagoras through to the underpinnings of quantum theory, chaos and derivatives trading, taking in key scientific developments and their mathematical explanations along the way. Stewart does a remarkable job of compacting this scope into just 17 chapters and about 300 pages.

If you’re a skilled mathematician you will gloss over the maths and still take value from the following discussions. If, however, your maths is more limited or, like mine, rather rusty, you’ll find you don’t need to follow all the mathematical details. You don’t need to really understand about grads, divs and curls, for example, to appreciate the similarity in “shape” between the key equations in several different areas of science. The author does a very fine job of both explaining this structure, and also where the reader must understand, and where detailed understanding is less important.

Some of the explanations are quite complex, especially where Stewart is exploring the most recent applications of older ideas. I did get lost a couple of times and had to re-read short sections, but overall I came away thinking that I had built a decent grasp.

The book has an admirable focus on the practical applications of science, but some of this is presented with such limited detail that in a couple of places it devolves into lists of applications rather than real explanations. As well as positive stories, Stewart is not afraid to show where mis-interpretation of the mathematics or its limitations has failed us, most notably in the last chapter on financial derivatives and how their abuse has caused the current crises.

Although eminently readable and often amusing, this book is best read in chunks of a couple of chapters at a time, allowing the ideas to sink in. Do so, and invest a little effort, and you’ll be well rewarded.

 

Buy It From Amazon

Categories: Reviews. Content Types: Book, Physics & Cosmology, and Science.

This entry was posted in Reviews. Bookmark the permalink.
Previous Post: The Crusade of Darkness
---- Next Post: Prometheus – Was I Supposed to Laugh?

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Thoughts on the World
Proudly powered by WordPress.
Questa Computing Ltd. is registered in England and Wales number:2889117.
Registered office: Ember House, 35-37 Creek Road, East Molesey, KT8 9BE UK
For credits, copyright details and cookie policy, see here.

Search my Sites:

Share this page:

Share |

Indexes

Favourite/Major Articles
All Articles by Category
All Articles by Title
Review Index

Site Map:

Welcome / Home Page
Contact Me
Search the Site
Thoughts on the World
Consultancy Services
Blog
Publications and Papers
Photography
Projects and Products
Reviews
Links

  • Blog Views

    • The Full Blog
    • The Professional Blog
    • The Photo Blog
    • The Review Pages
  • Categories

  • Reviews by Content

  • Archives

  • Contact Me

    Email me
    @TweetAndrewJ
    Others

    Feeds and Tweets

    Follow me on Twitter

    @TweetAndrewJ

    Thoughts on the World
    (main feed)

    Feedburner XML
    RSS Version XML (direct)

    How many subscribers?

    Other Feeds

    Professional Blog
    Photo Blog
    Photo Album
    Review Pages

    About my feeds

    Google Blog Search

    References to www.andrewj.com
    References to www.agilearchitect.org

    Sister Sites:

    www.agilearchitect.org