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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?

#152

Post by wdutch »

Maths tutor here. At that age I was very inspired by Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh. It's not a technical book but gave me my first idea of what mathematicians actually do and how the process works. This book motivated me to major in maths.

Anything by Ian Stewart would also be good, 'Letters to a Young Mathematician' springs to mind.

Given that you use the word 'maths' with an s I'm guessing you're not American. If you're British like me, I would recommend avoiding American books for high schoolers because they will assume quite different prerequisites.

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

#154

Post by giantg2 »

ivansavz wrote: post #78
giantg2 wrote: post #6

This isn't bad. I'm surprised it's expensive now. https://www.amazon.com/No-bullshit-guide-math-physics/dp/099...

Thx for plug. Indeed it would be a good book for any highschooler interested in more advanced topics. > I'm surprised it's expensive now. Yeah amazon pricing is weird. My intent is for the book to be sold ~$30, but if I tell this price to amazon they start selling it for $20 after discounting, and then readers buy it less because they think it is not a complete book, but just some sort of summary notes. Nowadays I se…

I could have sworn that it was between $15 and $20 when I got it a few years ago.

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

#155

Post by noriuday »

1) "The Science of Programming", by David Gries, is an excellent book dealing with mathematical proof based approach to programming.

2) "The Book of Numbers", by John H. Conway and Richard Guy is a beautiful book which discusses about figurative numbers amoung several other beautiful topics.

3) "Stories About Maxima and Minima", V. M. Tikhomirov has some beautiful anecdotes and interesting applications of calculus.

4) "Contemporary Abstract Algebra", by Joseph Gallian is an algebra textbook that goes beyond just teaching material. It has quotations, biographies, puzzles and interesting applications of algebra.

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

#156

Post by spindle »

MperorM wrote: post #37

During the first year of my undergrad someone introduced me to Gödel, Escher, Bach. I thought it was mind blowing at the time and still find it to be an incredible introduction to formal systems, thinking mathematically and understanding the concept of proofs. All these concepts are central to higher level mathematics, and are not covered in high school (at least not the Danish one). I'm was very thankful for that in…

Here's an interesting review:

https://journal.infinitenegativeutility.com/why-i-dont-love-...

It's a negative review, and I agree with all its points. In addition, I don't like Hofstadter's proof of Gödel's theorem - it's so LONG that it's hard to keep track of the parts. (The best proof of Gödel's theorem I've come across was given verbally by John Conway, and he had the opposite strategy - make the proof as brief as possible so that you can easily see an overview of it.)

But despite these criticisms, I think it's a wonderful book, and I agree with the idea of giving it to a teenager as an introduction to mathematics.

I first read it when I was 14 and went on to do a lot of mathematics and philosophy of mathematics.

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

#157

Post by mennis16 »

asknthrow2020 wrote: post #34

For analysis you absolutely MUST read Principles of Mathematical Analysis by Walter Rudin. Covers everything and is literally a gold standard text in modern analysis. "Baby Rudin" is essentially the analysis bible that all subsequent texts worked off of.

I heard a bunch of students complain about how tough the text for our Real Analysis class was, so I was surprised to find it felt pretty readable to me. Turns out it was a new prof that semester who decided to go with "Mathematical Analysis, Second Edition by Tom Apostol" instead of Baby Rudin.

Point being, there may be a better analysis text for this student to start with right now- depends highly on their background/situation, but personally I am glad I didn't have to read Rudin for my first "real" math course.

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

#159

Post by jfarmer »

secabeen wrote: post #158

A group of us maintain an annotated bibliography of math textbooks used at the University of Chicago. The entry level ones (like Spivak's Calculus) would be good to check out: https://github.com/ystael/chicago-ug-math-bib

Spivak was my 1st-year college textbook and it convinced me to major in math. I highly recommend.
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