Book Review: Good Math: A Geek's Guide to the Beauty of Numbers, Logic, and Computation (Pragmatic Programmers) by Mark Chu-Carroll: Publisher- Pragmatic: ISBN- 13: 978-1937785338
Good Math is excellent book for software programmers who do not have formal education in Mathematics. Book covers variety of topics.
Part
1 of book starts with Pop Sci style (discussion on very light topics like Natural
Numbers, Integers, etc). In Part 2, book strengthens Pop Sci style while
discussing Zero, Golden Ratio, etc. In Part 3, book is at its epitome for Pop Sci
style while discussing about Roman Numerals, Egyptian Fraction, and Continued
Fraction.
Part
4 diverges from Pop Sci and ventures into realm of Logic and Programming. Discussion
about Logic (with reference to Mr. Spock of Star Trek is superb). Part 5
prepares readers to take a dive into Set Theory which is fantastic. Lastly,
Part 6 enters into kingdom of Lambda Calculus.
Though
book has some flaws (like In Chapter 13, mathematical notation is used but
basic introduction in provided in chapter 16) but no one is perfect.
I
would like to see some talk around Prime numbers, infinity, and infinitesimal
in Pop Sci part.
Good
Math inspired me to extend my ninth grader/sophomore blog post to include
Lambda calculus apart from other software topics.
Good
Math is certainly going to live long on my bookshelf.
Disclaimer: I did not get paid
to review this book, and I do not stand to gain anything if you buy the book. I
have no relationship with the publisher or the author.
Further reading: I am not aware of any other book which covers topic of mathematics and computers in similar fashion as Good Maths. Only one book I can think of near to style and concept of Good Maths is Understanding Computation: From Simple Machines to Impossible Programs by Tom Stuart.
One
can get more information about book and related topics from:
- Mark’s blog: http://scientopia.org/blogs/goodmath/
- Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Math-Computation-Pragmatic-Programmers/dp/1937785335
- Publisher -- Pragmatic http://pragprog.com/book/mcmath/good-math
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