Finding Moonshine

Critics

• Magic numbers

  Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry by Marcus du Sautoy 376pp, Fourth Estate, £18.99 This is a marvellous account of a 4,000-year obsession with symmetry and the secret language of nature: the pentagonal structure of the hon ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

• Finding Moonshine

  "What's it all for?", Marcus du Sautoy was asked by a promising student who had decided to abandon higher mathematics to work in the City. This, and his impending 40th birthday, plunged him into a mild existential crisis. Why had he spent his life st ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

1 Review

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  After my beloved Dawkins, Du Sautoy became Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science so I had to give his work a try. Mathematics is not a matter I like as much as biology, evolution or religion (Dawkins usual subjects) but anyway I added it to my library.

  I must say I've en ... (continue)

  After my beloved Dawkins, Du Sautoy became Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science so I had to give his work a try. Mathematics is not a matter I like as much as biology, evolution or religion (Dawkins usual subjects) but anyway I added it to my library.

  I must say I've enjoyed the book quite a lot, specially the description of the great mathematicians life and work, who they were and why and how did they get to their great achievements. This is something I've always missed in all my science school classes: who were these geniuses whose shoulders so many stood on.

  But I have this feeling Du Sautoy hasn't fully explained what all this simmetry thing is really about. I mean, those like me who have not enough mathematical baggage get a bit lost once he starts to talk about 196,883-dimensional spaces (yes, really). Can't blame him, maybe the book success is the author not trying to explain something so harsh for profane minds and keeping all the focus in mathematics history. That is what the book is really about.

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  Alvaro said on Sep 28, 2011 | Add your feedback

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• ISBN-10: 0007214626
• ISBN-13: 9780007214624
• Also available as: eBook

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