Skeleton on his Cabinet

A Book Review to Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities

        Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities written by Ian Stewart is a delightful book featuring cornucopia of mathematical idiosyncrasy such as games, paradoxes,  puzzles, facts, numbers and math-based nibbles that could fill up ones curios mind. Stewart had collected books that were entertaining for he believed that the exuberant and merriment of mathematics are not taught in school but rather can be known elsewhere. Those were placed in his cabinet and were certainly called as curiosities. Veiled and hidden gems of logic, geometry and probability were some of those. He spent years for filling his cabinet with all those mathematical factoids and anecdotes premeditated for the adventurous mind of the intriguing mathematics.

        Stewart had succeeded on bringing out the exciting and fascinating part of mathematics.  He called this kind of approach as the recreational mathematics in which less of those requires numbers and arithmetic but is greatly associated with logic and the study of patterns that occupies higher mathematics.  He included non puzzle materials, such as taking back the readers to the history of the mathematical development which includes some biographies of idiosyncratic great mathematicians and allows giving details to the different discovered theories just like Poincare Conjecture, Fermat's last Theorem and Riemann Hypothesis that comes in a very outstanding ability of bringing no dullness to his explanations. He had opened doors to enticing perspective of understanding geometry in accordance to Euclid’s Theorems and in riveting themselves by calculating just how the genius Archimedes had moved the earth with his famed fulcrum. The beauty of logarithmic spirals and the dynamics of Chaos Theory was Stewart’s way to beget and lead us to be induced in mathematics’ magical mysteries.

        Pulling out the 179 drawers of Professor’s cabinet would be an enigma to the rest of the curios mind. No one will ever know what interesting, challenging and funny quirks of number patterns, witty mathematical games, puzzles stories and jokes could be found in the legendary mathematical cabinet.

                This book reveals the most invigorating oddities from Professor Stewart's mathematical cabinet. Inside, are mystifying trinkets of mathematics just like how to extract a cherry from a cocktail glass, a pop-up dodecahedron, and the real reason why anything cannot be divided by zero. Scattered among these are keys to Fermat's Last Theorem, the Poincare Conjecture, Chaos Theory, and the P=NP problems.

This amusing book will take you to a roller coaster ride of thrills and fun through discovering mathematics is really not that hard at all. The different curiosities were tough enough to give anyone a battle grounds for mathematical wits and conquest. Anyone who has read this book would really be damned great he did.