Customer Reviews

The Thread: A Mathematical Yarn

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book some 10 or more years ago. It's very interesting and very funny. The story starts when the author reads a glowing review of his doctoral thesis. There is, HOWEVER, a catch, and it leads the author on a quest for the correct spelling of the mathematician Chebychev's name. I haven't read any of the author's other books, but I'd say he does pretty well, and would expect good and humorous things from him.

If you are a science or math person, by which, I should clarify, I mean, someone who loves to get his hand on a good book, then by all means, this book is for you to crave. Philip Davis should be congratulated for writing this book.

There are books and there are books, and often, in these brand new days of marketing, we miss the chance to savor some of the best works, for lack of that very thing - either a fault of the publisher, or some other standard possibilities that exist, that are unknown to me.

This book is a funny account of the matter of the spelling of the name of a Russian scientist, but did I say it was funny. If you are put off by the word funny, let me restate this as - a book that is thin as a pancake with some explosive humorous material - not in the same league as Dave Barry or George Carlin, but in its own right, in a more academically fostered way. Then there are some great cartoons that, in their own right, should be mentioned as an added incentive to add this book to your collection of mathematical books. To that end we should thank Miss Dorian.

I am still upset over the fact, why, we the readers of books, who diverge greatly from the median population in our voraciousness of appetite, cannot get hold of these gems, and have to depend on frail probabilities to chance on them.

Hopefully, I haven't given anything away, and hopefully, by the time you read this, there will be some books available to read.

I just found my copy while cleaning my shelves. It was buried under some other books. And I remember why I still have it. What a wonderful, simply just wonderful book. I wouldn't give it up for nothing. If you can get a copy, buy it you will find it is book to cherish.

I am a scientist, so the quest to find the real spelling of Chebychev was a wonderful thread.

A book to cherish!!

As a math-and-physics literate person I'd say, "not enough content to sustain the understated humour" (or is it viceversa?).

Maybe if the author had stopped at Chebishev (or whatever: the T is a French addition, as that language hasn't got the English "ch" sound, and represents it by "tch"; the final "f" of "ff" are a mystery for me) and made it a brief sketch to be coupled with other 'mysteries' in a book, maybe if the monastic or Egyptian connections had been more fruitful ... .

Towards the end I really lost interest, as the book meanders a little too much.

Well, nice try.