The Universe and the Teacup: Mathematics of Truth and Beauty: Amazon.co.uk: K.C. Cole: Books

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

"Pure mathematics," Albert Einstein once remarked, "is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas." In The Universe and the Teacup, Los Angeles Times science writer K. C. Cole discusses some of the ways this "poetry" can be used to look at science and other realms of experience.

Mathematics, Cole explains, enables us to "translate the complexity of the world into manageable patterns," whether we're trying to comprehend the risks of smoking or the usefulness of DNA matches in criminal investigations. Cole also looks at how mathematical principles apply inunexpected fields. Without relying on a single equation, Cole's gently humorous prose helps make mathematics unthreatening to laypeople, enabling them to better understand the world in which they live. --Amazon.com

Dava Sobel, author of LONGITUDE

'...stands blissfully apart from all the recent books that have tried to analyse, exploit or quell the epidemic fear of mathematics...'

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22 Reviews

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3.0 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good book, marred by the author's obvious political agenda, 17 May 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Universe and the Teacup (Hardcover)

I found "The Universe and the Teacup" an enjoyable book, conveying to the average reader the meaning of math and science in our everyday lives. I was, however, disappointed that the author chose to stray from being a serious science writer and instead attempt to use math and science to justify her own political views. Cole takes shots at the Reagan administration, the NRA, and the Republican Party. No attempt for balance is offered by presenting examples from the left side of the political spectrum. She, at times, seems to miss the point of her book, devoting more time and space to the glass ceiling battled by female mathematicians and scientists than she devotes to their work itself.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Politics of Truth and Beauty, 19 April 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Universe and the Teacup (Hardcover)

Despite the title, not once in this book is an actual mathematical problem presented coherently. Instead, Cole drones on about the virtues of cooperation, the importance of minorities, and other left-wing philosophical themes. I'm a liberal and would tend to agree with her politically, but that ignores the central problem with this book: Cole's failure to make the distinction between mathematics itself and beliefs that just happen to be justified by statistics or quasi-mathematical reasoning.

Perhaps The Universe and the Teacup is best described as a meta-popularization, since virtually all of Cole's sources are themselves popularizations. She hypes such familiar staples of popular science writing as fuzzy logic, chaos and complexity theory ("all the rage these days" -- I thought that's what they said back in the 80's), and Godel's theorem (both "a shattering blow" AND "a staggering blow to our sense of certainty"), without showing that she understands any of these things on more than a superficial level. (I don't claim to be an expert on these topics, either, but then again I didn't write a book about them.)

For general readers interested in how mathematics relates to everyday life, I'd recommend John Allen Paulos "Innumeracy"; for a survey of modern mathematics, both "From Here To Infinity" by Ian Stewart and "Archimedes' Revenge" by Paul Hoffman succeed where "The Universe and the Teacup" fails.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars shallow, and the author's chip on her shoulder distracts., 1 Jan 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Universe and the Teacup: Mathematics of Truth and Beauty (Hardcover)

I seized on this book as another of my favourite genre - popular science. Whilst I struggled through to the end, I was disappointed by the shallowness of the discussions, and thoroughly distracted and put off by the author's [ ] political agenda - so much so I just had to write a review, for the first time ever.

KC Cole attempts to cover far too many subjects, which inevitably means that the surface of each can only be scratched. Tackling one or two in a great deal more detail would have produced a much more satisfying book.

I would (I hope) be amongst the last to object to anyone's own views on any subject. However, when they crop up in a book like this then the reader is entitled to their views. For instance "Physicists rely on Noether's theorem, even though many have no idea who Noether was or that she was a woman" (just one example from many). I venture to suggest that most physicists rely on all sorts of theorems whilst knowing nothing about the private circumstances of their creators.

I would recommend this book only to aspiring authors as an example of how not to write a book on science.