Reviews for Poincare and the Three Body Problem

The average rating for Poincare and the Three Body Problem based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-01-29 00:00:00 Vaibhav Sharma This book is hard for me to rate. It is not perfect, but I'm going to go ahead and give it five stars, because I think Byers is onto something. His ultimate argument is that mathematics, at its heart, is a creative activity. I don't think that should be a radical thesis, but apparently it is. What does Byers do? He undercuts the notion that math is purely logical, completely rational. He mines the history of mathematics for its great ideas and uses them as examples of how ambiguity, contradiction and paradox are used by great mathematicians to create new mathematics. Logic and proofs codify the ideas but do not capture the process. This is one aspect of his argument where my lack of knowledge was a shortcoming, perhaps. I think he was saying that the logical structure of the proofs do not tell the whole story. If it is not fully convincing, I'd like to hear from someone about that. I am an elementary school teacher. In our lessons, many kindergarten and elementary school teachers teach math by giving the children experiences that will hopefully replicate the creative experience Byers describes. The children "construct" the knowledge from the ground up. To be honest, I am not so sure that many high school teachers aim for that effect. If they did, I believe more of us would have stuck with math. Byers stated at one point (p.363) that university teachers did not teach "constructively" either. My advanced math knowledge is limited. At times, the writing seemed convoluted and/or redundant, especially when the topic is essentially philosophical. I'd love to hear what math specialists and teachers of advanced math think of this book.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-06-27 00:00:00 Rhys Brigham Perhaps, like me, you've wondered about what mathematicians really do. Describing what mathematicians do, and also how they think about what they do, is precisely the subject of William Byers excellent book How Mathematicians Think . In short, this book helped me wrap my mind around what mathematics really is. I have always had a love/hate relationship with mathematics. Throughout my formal education, I found math to be intimidating, especially in my undergraduate and graduate studies. After reading this book, however, I have a new appreciation for mathematics. Thanks to Byers' unpretentious and clear prose, I think I now understand what mathematics actually is and also what mathematicians actually do. I regret not reading this book at an earlier age. This book is simply fantastic and after reading it my love for mathematics has grown.