Beyond Numeracy

This is almost a sequel to Innumeracy in which Paulos goes beyond the simple exposition of people's difficulties with math to teach, in a very readable fashion, to main concepts of mathematics, be it simple high school, college, or even the complex research mathematics. The nice thing about this book is that you can read it bit by bit, since each chapter that deals with a topic is about 3-5 pages long, so you won't get bored and if you don't understand one topic you can move on to the next one. The topics are not really connected, so one can just move on to somehting one finds more interesting. Overall, I believe I now know what many of the complex topics like chaos theory are about. Enough for a cocktail conversation with a mathematician at least.

I was captured entirely by "innumaracy", so i dwelve deeper into John Allen Paulo works, his website and other books, and i manage to buy several of the books.I particularly like beyond numeracy. It is not as easily read as innumeracy, but it is deeper and more insightful.It is written in loose shorter essays focusing on special mathematic things. I love the explanation of "infinity", "chaos theory", "pi", "probability" etc. I think people interested slightly in mathematics will be enchanted and enjoying the book.Some of the essays are only sweet writing words, some contain heavy formula that needs digestions and basic math understanding.There are about 70 short essays in all that can be read independently at leasure. I found out i strted to get dizzy after reading 10 essays in a straight reading.John proved that you can make dry stuff interesting, and if you read some of the materials and use if for conversation, it will makes you look like a whiz with great taste! that is one additional benefit of reading! and you will do it without the usual pain. ;-)

I read "Innumeracy" and liked it so I read this book too. For me this book is better because there's more mathematical meat on it and it seems to sweep across the whole field of mathematics in easy to read pieces. I wish I'd read this before I started University, my undergraduate maths was so much disjointed rote learning. I got the grades but I'm not sure I really learned anything about mathematics. This book helps to put it all in perspective.

This book was required for my contemporay mathematics class in school, and I thought it was wonderful. Paulos explains many areas of mathematics so that anyone can understand. He does this using real-world examples. Paulos also explains how many common items in our lives are based on math. I think this is great for the student who finds himself/herself saying, "When am I ever going to use this in real life?" during their math classes.

This book is extraordinarily witty and well-written and manages to cover an amazing amount of mathematics in its 80 or so short segments. Great for a survey course or for someone who wants a feel for mathematics but can't bear to read a clunky textbook.