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Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

(www.quantamagazine.org)
669 points sonabinu | 1 comments | 21 Nov 24 01:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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generationP ◴[21 Nov 24 15:58 UTC] No.42205598[source]▶
If the article is in any way representative of the book, then I'm not sure what there is to be learned from the book. That mathematical skills can be honed through practice? That it happens at an intuitive, pre-rigorous level before it is ready to be written down on paper? How surprising. And I doubt he can disprove the genetical component of intelligence, only show that there are other components to mathematical productivity as well.

At least I know that David Bessis's mathematical work is not as shallow as this. His twitter thread on the process https://x.com/davidbessis/status/1849442592519286899 is actually quite insightful. I would guess this also made it into the book in some longform version, but I don't know whether I would buy the book just for that.

replies(1): >>42205744 #
1. lupire ◴[21 Nov 24 16:10 UTC] No.42205744[source]▶
This topic is probably the worst possible topic for Quanta.

The book, as I understand it, is about the life changing power of mathematical thinking. Quanta's mission is to make deep mathematics and mathematicians a "sexy" "human interest" topic, by making it as non-mathematical as possible while keeping a superficial veneer of mathematics.