[math-fun] Suggestions requested for a recreational math book for a bright 15-year-old
A bright friend of mine just turned 15. They are rather advanced in math for their age and a good chess-player. At age 12 I was ecstatic to receive the first book in Martin Gardner's series of collected columns, around 1959. My friend has not seen anything by Gardner yet, so those are the first thing that comes to mind. Yet I wonder if at this point they might seem somewhat dated. All suggestions and opinions welcome. --Dan ________________________________________________________________________________________ It goes without saying that .
I am betting that the first Gardner collection, the *Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions*, is almost timeless and will captivate a math-precocious 15-year-old. It has been republished under a different title since then. What it really needs is for somebody to edit in afterwords that give followups on progress that has been made since, but honestly, if the situation is explained to the kid, the kid will know how to google for updates on any interesting topic. On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:31 PM, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
A bright friend of mine just turned 15. They are rather advanced in math for their age and a good chess-player.
At age 12 I was ecstatic to receive the first book in Martin Gardner's series of collected columns, around 1959. My friend has not seen anything by Gardner yet, so those are the first thing that comes to mind. Yet I wonder if at this point they might seem somewhat dated.
All suggestions and opinions welcome.
--Dan
________________________________________________________________________________________ It goes without saying that .
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
Several of Gardner's books have been recently updated. See: http://www.cambridge.org/us/knowledge/series/series_display/item3937703/The-... George http://momath.org/ http://georgehart.com/ On 2/22/2012 5:06 PM, Allan Wechsler wrote:
I am betting that the first Gardner collection, the *Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions*, is almost timeless and will captivate a math-precocious 15-year-old. It has been republished under a different title since then. What it really needs is for somebody to edit in afterwords that give followups on progress that has been made since, but honestly, if the situation is explained to the kid, the kid will know how to google for updates on any interesting topic.
On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:31 PM, Dan Asimov<dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
A bright friend of mine just turned 15. They are rather advanced in math for their age and a good chess-player.
At age 12 I was ecstatic to receive the first book in Martin Gardner's series of collected columns, around 1959. My friend has not seen anything by Gardner yet, so those are the first thing that comes to mind. Yet I wonder if at this point they might seem somewhat dated.
All suggestions and opinions welcome.
--Dan
________________________________________________________________________________________ It goes without saying that .
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
Hall & Knight, "Higher Algebra". Coxeter, "Introduction to Geometry". Birkhoff & MacLane, "Survey of Modern Algebra". Thomas, "Calculus and Analytic Geometry". Gamow, "One, Two, Three, Infinity", has some nice math, but some of the physics and astronomy is out of date. Plus other books by Gamow. These should be the easiest reading among the books I've listed here. Max Born, "Atomic Physics". Pauling, "General Chemistry". Also, look through the book catalogs of MAA and Dover Publications. -- Gene
________________________________ From: Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 1:31 PM Subject: [math-fun] Suggestions requested for a recreational math book for a bright 15-year-old
A bright friend of mine just turned 15. They are rather advanced in math for their age and a good chess-player.
At age 12 I was ecstatic to receive the first book in Martin Gardner's series of collected columns, around 1959. My friend has not seen anything by Gardner yet, so those are the first thing that comes to mind. Yet I wonder if at this point they might seem somewhat dated.
All suggestions and opinions welcome.
--Dan
A modest suggestion: Conway & Guy, The Book of Numbers. R. On Wed, 22 Feb 2012, Eugene Salamin wrote:
Hall & Knight, "Higher Algebra".
Coxeter, "Introduction to Geometry".
Birkhoff & MacLane, "Survey of Modern Algebra".
Thomas, "Calculus and Analytic Geometry".
Gamow, "One, Two, Three, Infinity", has some nice math, but some of the physics and astronomy is out of date. Plus other books by Gamow. These should be the easiest reading among the books I've listed here.
Max Born, "Atomic Physics".
Pauling, "General Chemistry".
Also, look through the book catalogs of MAA and Dover Publications.
-- Gene
________________________________ From: Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 1:31 PM Subject: [math-fun] Suggestions requested for a recreational math book for a bright 15-year-old
A bright friend of mine just turned 15. They are rather advanced in math for their age and a good chess-player.
At age 12 I was ecstatic to receive the first book in Martin Gardner's series of collected columns, around 1959. My friend has not seen anything by Gardner yet, so those are the first thing that comes to mind. Yet I wonder if at this point they might seem somewhat dated.
All suggestions and opinions welcome.
--Dan
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
Those are all kind of old, except the Gardner stuff which has fairly well stood the test of time. I'd recommend QUADRIVIUM by Miranda Lundy, Dr. Jason Martineau et al. ISBN 0802778135, 416 pages hardcover. Gamow kind of messed up my understanding of the Continuum Hypothesis, and I kind of think we can do much better with newer books. On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 19:44, Richard Guy <rkg@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
A modest suggestion: Conway & Guy, The Book of Numbers. R.
On Wed, 22 Feb 2012, Eugene Salamin wrote:
Hall & Knight, "Higher Algebra".
Coxeter, "Introduction to Geometry".
Birkhoff & MacLane, "Survey of Modern Algebra".
Thomas, "Calculus and Analytic Geometry".
Gamow, "One, Two, Three, Infinity", has some nice math, but some of the physics and astronomy is out of date. Plus other books by Gamow. These should be the easiest reading among the books I've listed here.
Max Born, "Atomic Physics".
Pauling, "General Chemistry".
Also, look through the book catalogs of MAA and Dover Publications.
-- Gene
______________________________**__
From: Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com**> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 1:31 PM Subject: [math-fun] Suggestions requested for a recreational math book for a bright 15-year-old
A bright friend of mine just turned 15. They are rather advanced in math for their age and a good chess-player.
At age 12 I was ecstatic to receive the first book in Martin Gardner's series of collected columns, around 1959. My friend has not seen anything by Gardner yet, so those are the first thing that comes to mind. Yet I wonder if at this point they might seem somewhat dated.
All suggestions and opinions welcome.
--Dan
-- Robert Munafo -- mrob.com Follow me at: gplus.to/mrob - fb.com/mrob27 - twitter.com/mrob_27 - mrob27.wordpress.com - youtube.com/user/mrob143 - rilybot.blogspot.com
When I was 13 my mother gave me a copy of Hall & Knight "Higher Algebra" (which she later took back :-( ) --- I see someone else recommended it too. At the same time a neighbor gave me Melzack's "Companion to Concrete Mathematics" [am I getting the title right?]. I really enjoyed both of them. Knuth, Graham, & Patashnik's "Concrete Mathematics" didn't exist when I was a kid, but I know I would have loved it. At a slightly younger age I loved the MAA series of math books (I'm not sure what they're called these days) including [I am pulling these titles out of memory, but I can completely picture these paperback books;] "The uses of Infinity", "Groups and their graphs", "What is Calculus about?", and "Intro to Topology". (There were plenty of others in the series, but I am not recalling them exactly.) Probably too young for your friend, though. In high school I got two number theory texts as a gift (Niven & Zuckerman, and a book by Dickson) --- I don't think the specific books are critical, any number theory text is going to seem recreational to a kid who likes math but has not yet seen a formal treatment of number theory. Hardy "A mathematician's Apology" isn't exactly recreational math, but was definitely enjoyable to read. In a similar vein, there was Nagel & Newman's "Godel's Proof" --- and by now there are many more recent popular books on the Incompleteness Theorem and other mathematical theorems (Wiles' proof of Fermat's Theorem, the Reimann Hypothesis, ...) I see that someone recommended Raymond Smullyan --- his logic puzzles are loads of fun, but I think they're probably aimed at a slightly younger crowd. ----- Message from mlb@well.com --------- Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:45:50 -0800 From: Marc LeBrun <mlb@well.com> Reply-To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: [math-fun] Suggestions requested for a recreational math book for a bright 15-year-old To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com>
="Dan Asimov" <dasimov@earthlink.net> All suggestions and opinions welcome.
Raymond Smullyan
Lewis Carrol
Rudy Rucker
And, perhaps, "The Book of Numbers" by Conway & Guy.
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
----- End message from mlb@well.com -----
how about giving a home-use copy of mathematica or maple? home use copies sell for abour $295. it's pricier than any onr of the above books, but i would have found something like that to be supendously interesting at that age. bob baillie --- mbgreen@cis.upenn.edu wrote:
When I was 13 my mother gave me a copy of Hall & Knight "Higher Algebra" (which she later took back :-( ) --- I see someone else recommended it too. At the same time a neighbor gave me Melzack's "Companion to Concrete Mathematics" [am I getting the title right?]. I really enjoyed both of them.
Knuth, Graham, & Patashnik's "Concrete Mathematics" didn't exist when I was a kid, but I know I would have loved it.
At a slightly younger age I loved the MAA series of math books (I'm not sure what they're called these days) including [I am pulling these titles out of memory, but I can completely picture these paperback books;] "The uses of Infinity", "Groups and their graphs", "What is Calculus about?", and "Intro to Topology". (There were plenty of others in the series, but I am not recalling them exactly.) Probably too young for your friend, though.
In high school I got two number theory texts as a gift (Niven & Zuckerman, and a book by Dickson) --- I don't think the specific books are critical, any number theory text is going to seem recreational to a kid who likes math but has not yet seen a formal treatment of number theory.
Hardy "A mathematician's Apology" isn't exactly recreational math, but was definitely enjoyable to read. In a similar vein, there was Nagel & Newman's "Godel's Proof" --- and by now there are many more recent popular books on the Incompleteness Theorem and other mathematical theorems (Wiles' proof of Fermat's Theorem, the Reimann Hypothesis, ...)
I see that someone recommended Raymond Smullyan --- his logic puzzles are loads of fun, but I think they're probably aimed at a slightly younger crowd.
----- Message from mlb@well.com --------- Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:45:50 -0800 From: Marc LeBrun <mlb@well.com> Reply-To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: [math-fun] Suggestions requested for a recreational math book for a bright 15-year-old To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com>
="Dan Asimov" <dasimov@earthlink.net> All suggestions and opinions welcome.
Raymond Smullyan
Lewis Carrol
Rudy Rucker
And, perhaps, "The Book of Numbers" by Conway & Guy.
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
----- End message from mlb@well.com -----
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
There is a 2nd edition of Golomb's "Polyominoes" (no better way of experiencing submersion into a fascinating if frivolous microcosm). Euler's collected works are available online and make for excellent browsing. Most of the fun is figuring out what he is doing ... On Feb 22, 2012, at 4:31 PM, Dan Asimov wrote:
A bright friend of mine just turned 15. They are rather advanced in math for their age and a good chess-player.
At age 12 I was ecstatic to receive the first book in Martin Gardner's series of collected columns, around 1959. My friend has not seen anything by Gardner yet, so those are the first thing that comes to mind. Yet I wonder if at this point they might seem somewhat dated.
All suggestions and opinions welcome.
--Dan
________________________________________________________________________________________ It goes without saying that .
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
* Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> [Feb 23. 2012 07:40]:
A bright friend of mine just turned 15. They are rather advanced in math for their age and a good chess-player.
At age 12 I was ecstatic to receive the first book in Martin Gardner's series of collected columns, around 1959. My friend has not seen anything by Gardner yet, so those are the first thing that comes to mind. Yet I wonder if at this point they might seem somewhat dated.
All suggestions and opinions welcome.
--Dan
(Others have already suggested Conway/Guy "Book of Numbers" and Graham/Knuth/Patashnik "Concrete Math", which would have been me immediate answers). J.\ M.\ Borwein, P.\ B.\ Borwein: {Pi and the AGM} Wiley, (1987) H.-D.\ Ebbinghaus, H.\ Hermes, F.\ Hirzebruch, M.\ Koecher, K.\ Mainzer, J.\ Neukirch, A.\ Prestel, R.\ Remmert: {Zahlen}, second edition, Springer-Verlag, (1988). English translation: {Numbers}
From the "pretty pics" department there is Mandelbrot and also Heinz-Otto Peitgen, Hartmut J\"{u}rgens, Dietmar Saupe: {Chaos and Fractals}, Springer-Verlag, (1992) (and at least one two titles of the same-ish authors)
John B.\ Fraleigh: {A first course in abstract algebra}, sixth edition, Addison-Wesley, (2000) %% there should be a newer edition Instead of a (closed-source, eek!) program: Thomas H.\ Cormen, Charles E.\ Leiserson, Ronald L.\ Rivest, Clifford Stein: {Introduction to Algorithms}, MIT Press, second edition, (2001) %% there may be a newer edition Joachim von zur Gathen, J\"{u}rgen Gerhard: {Modern Computer Algebra}, Cambridge University Press, second edition, (2003).
participants (11)
-
Allan Wechsler -
Dan Asimov -
Eugene Salamin -
George W. Hart -
Joerg Arndt -
Marc LeBrun -
mbgreen＠cis.upenn.edu -
Richard Guy -
Robert Baillie -
Robert Munafo -
Veit Elser