In this profound book, written for a wide audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award-winning mathematician and educator weaves parables, puzzles, and personal reflections to show how mathematics meets basic human desires-such as for play, beauty, freedom, justice, and love-and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. These desires and virtues, and the stories told here, reveal how mathematics is intimately tied to being human. Some lessons emerge from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother's, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Selected for the 2021 Phi Beta Kappa Award for Science Short List Winner of the Euler Book Prize, sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America "Beautifully written, contains well-chosen and interesting mathematical puzzles, and offers an important viewpoint for mathematicians to consider.The book is aimed at a broader audience and is also a call to being more inclusive, to recognising that there are many paths to success."-Pamela Gorkin, The Mathematical Intelligencer Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 9780300237139 Number of pages: 288 Weight: 454 g Dimensions: 210 x 140 x 25 mm MEDIA REVIEWS Christopher's letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can-and must-be open to all. "The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. "Please read this beautiful, compelling, galvanizing book if you care about mathematics, social justice, or humanity, which I hope is everyone."-Eugenia Cheng, author of The Art of Logic in an Illogical World The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them."-Kevin Hartnett, Quanta Magazine The key qualities developed by mathematical thinking are characteristics that we should all value and long for."-Eddie Woo, author of It's a Numberful World "The world desperately needs this all-embracing and deeply human perspective on what mathematics is and why it matters. "I was mesmerized by this unusual, sublime book.
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