Math with its Real Magic

*book review: Ian Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities

Do you consider yourself as math enthusiast, passionate on it? Then try reading this brilliant piece of Stewart.

Ian Stewart was not a new name to me. I’ve read some of his reviews and I admire him. I can say that most of his works are not for the layman specially this book (Cabinet of mathematical Curiosities). It’s not the kind of book that anybody can easily read through from start to finish. It mainly circles on the famous and ignoble mathematical problems, math jokes and history, brain benders and mind boggling puzzles.

The humor of Stewart is somewhat odd, maybe because he’s a deep mathematician. The book is like a manual, a lot of problems/ exercises are partially left for the readers to answer (assuming they’ll answer). I tried answering some and checked for the correct answers at the back part of the book. One thing I’d like about the book is that it doesn't follow a chronological story, it was divided into a lot of sections of different topics wherein anyone could go only or read into a topic he/she is interested in.

Compiling those mathematical concepts, jokes, etc., in just a book was not an easy thing. And I more admire Stewart for that. Then the title cabinet then now makes sense. This book reminds me of the Riemann hypothesis and the million dollar prize.

With this book, you’ll encounter math problems which are really new to you, never had encountered in school or books. By this, math, I must say, is absolutely magic, you’ll really get amazed with it.

These problems were personally came from the cabinet of Stewart, personally collected by him over the years. Then it was published to the public, the private collection of him is bared and it’s a pleasure for me being one of the people who were able to read it.

Definitely not a waste of time.

I've seen the magic. Try reading it, trust me, you’ll gonna see it too!