4 ms·

Terence Tao: Just a brief announcement that I have been working with Quanta Books to publish a short book in popular mathematics entitled “Six Math Essentials“,

Terence Tao: Just a brief announcement that I have been working with Quanta Books to publish a short book in popular mathematics entitled “Six Math Essentials“, which will cover six of the fundamental concepts in mathematics.

alok-g 7mo ago
From the brief description, this sounds to be quite basic. Looking forward to hearing if Terence has treated the explanations differently. :-)
- hirvi74 7mo ago
  > this sounds to be quite basic. It should be according to Tao's own comment at the bottom of the blog: "This book is for a general audience, without necessarily having a college-level math education. It is aimed more at adults than at children, but some children with an interest in mathematics may be able to get something of it."
  - travisjungroth 7mo ago
    I just really liked that question and response.
- ngcc_hk 7mo ago
  Basic … that kind of word give me nightmare in my mind when you talked about maths … still remember a book called “elementary set theory” …
  - ecshafer 7mo ago
    I remember a joke along the lines of "elementary" meaning that someone somewhere has solved it before.
    - taneq 7mo ago
      "Any question in maths is either unsolved or obvious."
  - esafak 7mo ago
    My favorite example is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Number_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Number_Theory
    - kleiba 7mo ago
      "The word `basic’ in the title is closer in meaning to `foundational’ rather than `elementary’ [...]" (quoted from that same wikipedia page).
    - vmilner 7mo ago
      "The title is the same as that of a very well-known book by Professor L. E. Dickson (with which ours has little in common). We proposed at one time to change it to 'An introduction to arithmetic', a more novel and in some ways a more appropriate title; but it was pointed out that this might lead to misunderstandings about the content of the book." G.H. Hardy and E. M. Wright "An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers"
  - raegis 7mo ago
    The one math majors joke about is Serra’s A Course in Arithmetic, which is definitely not for young children.

alok-g 7mo ago

From the brief description, this sounds to be quite basic. Looking forward to hearing if Terence has treated the explanations differently. :-)

hirvi74 7mo ago
> this sounds to be quite basic. It should be according to Tao's own comment at the bottom of the blog: "This book is for a general audience, without necessarily having a college-level math education. It is aimed more at adults than at children, but some children with an interest in mathematics may be able to get something of it."
- travisjungroth 7mo ago
  I just really liked that question and response.
ngcc_hk 7mo ago
Basic … that kind of word give me nightmare in my mind when you talked about maths … still remember a book called “elementary set theory” …
- ecshafer 7mo ago
  I remember a joke along the lines of "elementary" meaning that someone somewhere has solved it before.
  - taneq 7mo ago
    "Any question in maths is either unsolved or obvious."
- esafak 7mo ago
  My favorite example is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Number_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Number_Theory
  - kleiba 7mo ago
    "The word `basic’ in the title is closer in meaning to `foundational’ rather than `elementary’ [...]" (quoted from that same wikipedia page).
  - vmilner 7mo ago
    "The title is the same as that of a very well-known book by Professor L. E. Dickson (with which ours has little in common). We proposed at one time to change it to 'An introduction to arithmetic', a more novel and in some ways a more appropriate title; but it was pointed out that this might lead to misunderstandings about the content of the book." G.H. Hardy and E. M. Wright "An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers"
- raegis 7mo ago
  The one math majors joke about is Serra’s A Course in Arithmetic, which is definitely not for young children.