Mathematics / Book Reviews

For The Love of Math

Or, how to explore the cosmos without leaving home

I understand entirely if “love” isn’t something that math evokes in you. It didn’t for me, either, until I was in my early twenties.

As a high school student, I felt relieved when I completed the required math credits and could skip calculus my senior year. Had anyone told me I’d eventually major in mathematics — even pursue a doctorate in it! — I’d have laughed in their face.

I remember the moment things changed. It was 2005, and I was living in Los Angeles. I’d grown my hair out and was playing keyboards in a rock band. My roommate — a boisterous Londoner and the band’s drummer — had read Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and encouraged me to read it. I didn’t.

I mean, I was going to. I went to Barnes & Noble and headed straight for the physics section. I saw the Bill Bryson book on the shelf, but something else caught my eye: The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. I probably read a hundred pages of Greene’s book in the store. I forgot all about Bryson and walked out of Barnes & Noble that day with a new hunger to understand something called “string theory.”

As it turns out, physics is a pretty effective gateway drug to the world of…