Writing Worth Reading
Last updated 12 pm GMT
Writing Worth Reading
It is quite rare in maths writing that you get someone who is such a good stylist, and he’s cultured so he puts it in context. It’s an absolute joy to read, even though some of the maths is quite difficult. I would probably recommend it to someone who is already interested in maths.
Your next choice is about pi, another number.
Petr Beckmann was a Czech electrical engineer who lived in Czechoslovakia until he was 39 in 1963, when he went to America as a visiting professor and just stayed there.
The History of Pi is so well written. It is really funny, really witty and charming – full of weird deadpan one-liners – but also incredibly opinionated. He says, ‘Not being a historian I am not obliged to wear the mask of dispassionate aloofness.’
This guy was a teenager in Prague who then escaped the regime, and there is so much brilliant anti-Communist stuff in here. For example, when he talks about the death of Archimedes at the hands of the Romans, he obviously really hates the Romans, who he sees as totalitarian. It is quite rare in maths writing that you get someone who is such a good stylist, and he’s cultured so he puts it in context. It’s an absolute joy to read, even though some of the maths is quite difficult. I would probably recommend it to someone who is already interested in maths, maybe to a teenager also.
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Alex Bellos is a journalist. He lived in Rio de Janeiro from 1998-2003 writing about Brazil for The Guardian, where he wrote Futebol, a book about Brazilian culture and the country’s obsession with the world’s most popular sport. His latest book, Alex’s Adventures in Numberland (published in the US as Here’s Looking at Euclid), has just been awarded the first ever special commendation in the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction.
