Genre: Nonfiction
Year Published: 2005
I'm a mathematician by training, so when the holidays roll around, I often find myself in possession of several new books that somehow incorporate math. Since mathematicians tend to be below-average writers (myself, I hope, excepted), a lot of these turn out to be well nigh unreadable. (A noteworthy exception is Fermat's Enigma, one of my all-time favorite books in any genre.)
The Math Instinct, however, is extremely readable -- not surprising, as the author is a commentator on NPR's Weekend Edition and has written many books for a general audience. In fact, at times I almost felt I was being condescended to a bit . . . but you can't trust the opinion of a mathematician on that point.
Devlin's point in writing this book is to illustrate the many ways in which complex mathematics are performed by various members of the plant and animal kingdoms, ostensibly to make math seem a little less daunting to the public, but also to showcase how natural selection can really produce some amazing results. My favorite example is that of the Tunisian desert ant that can wander far from its home in multiple directions and then walk straight home instead of retracing its path. That's a trig problem, dear readers, and while Devlin makes it clear that it's erroneous to think of an ant as doing trigonometry, you can think of its daily walk as a trig problem that nature has enabled it to solve instinctively.
Devlin catalogues this sort of mathematical behavior in all sorts of animals, and this is interesting, if it's the sort of thing you're into. (It is for me, but again, as a mathematician, I don't feel I can really speak for the general public at this point.) Where the book really gets intriguing, though, is towards the end (Chapter 10 out of 13 total), when Devlin takes on the idea of mathematics as an innate process.
He cites fascinating studies that show, for example, that young Brazilian street vendors are able to mentally perform complicated arithmetic problems, but are utterly unable to reproduce those results on math exams, because of the dichotomy of "street math" versus "school math." Devlin comes to conclusions about math education that I think would be very interesting and informative for anyone who's in the education field, as well as anyone who feels that they're a smart person, but just "doesn't get" math.
Recommended? Sure! It's fun, it's easy, and people will think you're smart if they see you reading it on the subway.
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