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Ask HN: Recommend a maths book for a teenager?

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Re: Ask HN: Recommend a maths book for a teenager?

#191
I recommend John Stillwell’s The Four Pillars of Geometry https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780387255309. This book is suitable for all who want to cultivate a interest in mathematics.

The Four Pillars of Geometry approaches geometry in four different ways, spending two chapters on each. This makes the subject accessible to readers of all mathematical tastes, from the visual to the algebraic. Not only does each approach offer a different view; the combination of viewpoints yields insights not available in most books at this level. For example, it is shown how algebra emerges from projective geometry, and how the hyperbolic plane emerges from the real projective line.

John Stillwell is a great mathematician and writer. You won’t regret reading this.

PS. John Stillwell’s Mathematics and Its History is also worth reading. In fact, the book doesn’t aim to tell the story of mathematics. The book connects and the parts of mathematics with a historical perspective.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend a maths book for a teenager?

#194

There is no such thing as 'maths'. It is called 'math' which is short for 'mathematics'. I have an advanced degree in mathematics. No one ever called mathematics 'maths' while I was in college. Absolutely no one. They would have been laughed out of the room.

"Maths" is the standard Anglophone term outside of North America.
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