Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry

by Ian Stewart

At the heart of relativity theory, quantum mechanics, string theory, and much of modern cosmology lies one concept: symmetry. In Why Beauty Is Truth, world-famous mathematician Ian Stewart narrates the history of the emergence of this remarkable area of study. Stewart introduces us to such characters as the Renaissance Italian genius, rogue, scholar, and gambler Girolamo Cardano, who stole the modern method of solving cubic equations and published it in the first important book on algebra, and the young revolutionary Evariste Galois, who refashioned the whole of mathematics and founded the field of group theory only to die in a pointless duel over a woman before his work was published. Stewart also explores the strange numerology of real mathematics, in which particular numbers have unique and unpredictable properties related to symmetry. He shows how Wilhelm Killing discovered “Lie groups” with 14, 52, 78, 133, and 248 dimensions-groups whose very existence is a profound puzzle. Finally, Stewart describes the world beyond superstrings: the “octonionic” symmetries that may explain the very existence of the universe.

Genres: Science, Mathematics, Nonfiction, History, Physics, Philosophy, Popular Science

290 pages, Hardcover

First published August 2, 2007

About the author

Ian Nicholas Stewart is an Emeritus Professor and Digital Media Fellow in the Mathematics Department at Warwick University, with special responsibility for public awareness of mathematics and science. He is best known for his popular science writing on mathematical themes.
--from the author's website

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See other authors with similar names.

Reviews

[Koen Crolla · Rating 2 out of 5]

As advertised, Why Beauty Is Truth is a history of symmetry, briefly covering all of the usual suspects—the Babylonians, Euclid, Omar Khayyám, Cardano, Gauss, Lagrange, Abel, Galois, Lie, &c. up to modern group theory, then backtracking and going over Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Wigner, Witten, &c. stumbling in the general direction of physical symmetries—with the usual variable amount of accuracy.

It also contains a very tiny bit of mathematics, for which Stewart apologises profusely and continuously; the two pages of his first apology starting by repeating the sentiment that every equation halves the sale of a book and continuing with repeated assurances that the reader will not be expected to understand what such complicated symbols as √ and ² mean or even to look at any of the mathematics and really if you'd rather have a lie-down that's fine too.
Stewart has always been, to some extent, the sort of mathematician who's dreadfully embarrassed to be a mathematician (though to his credit, he does sort of stick up for his field in the closing chapter) and who seems to think that The Public uniformly hates mathematics despite the fact that part of it—the part that's his audience—clearly bought a book about mathematics. His endless apologies for the existence of his chosen field might be merely tedious, but the fact that his attitude also leads him to assume his readers never got past elementary-school mathematics and don't even remember most of that crosses into the offensive. I don't know who Stewart imagines his audience is, but he underestimates it.

The physics it contains is, if anything, worse. While the mathematics is too shallow and fragmentary to be understood by a reader who is not already familiar with them, it is, where it's not too vague to tell, at least broadly correct. Stewart's grasp on physics, though, is far less reliable; knowing that the speed of light in a vacuum is a matter of definition rather than measurement is one thing, but purporting to explain relativity and then not knowing that rotation is not just a matter of perspective or dismissing the luminiferous aether but then discussing the ``fabric of spacetime'' in the exact same terms, for example, is less excusable. Stewart is not a physicist; that does not exonerate him.

As such, it's probably most generous to treat Why Truthy is Beaut not as a work of popular mathematics or (especially) popular physics, but as one of popular history. As a book about history, the mathematics bit of it is basically interchangeable with any of a hundred other books written by mathematicians on the same general subject, and the physics bit is basically interchangeable with any of a hundred other books written by physicists on the same general subject, but if history is what you're after, its innocent inaccuracies, which would be more than acceptable in popular mathematics, destroy it.
In the end, there are many books covering roughly the same ground that are much better all around, including some written by Stewart himself. Why Beauty is Truth is not worth your time.

I'm sure I used to have more patience for Stewart; I don't know what happened.

[Hugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have enjoyed Why Beauty is Truth a lot more if I understood higher mathematics better. Stewart is an excellent writer, but I'm afraid the material is less approachable than he makes it out to be.

On the other hand, the historical side is quite accessible and comprises numerous deftly-told and intriguing stories.

The only criticism I would offer from a content standpoint is his dismissal of anything having to do with the so-called "fine tuning" arguments for the existence of God. More than once he simply labels them "bogus" and proceeds on his way. As those matters are peripheral to the story he's trying to tell, it's a minor gripe, but they do stand in stark contrast to the rigor that characterizes the rest of the book.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A crash course in Mathematical history focusing on symmetry told by a mathematician with an actual sense of humor and an ability to make all the in depth historical tidbits very interesting. A must read for all geeks.

[Phalguni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only is the content beautifully chosen and laid out, but the style of narration is natural and easy to follow. Many popular science books tend to get increasingly obscure and uninteresting after a few beginning chapters, but Why Beauty is Truth succeeds in keeping the reader engaged till the very end. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in mathematics and theoretical physics.

[Cassandra Kay Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am trying to work my way through some mathematical studies and thought this would be interesting. It was a nice but also maybe boring? I usually like reading the histories of math and was excited at the onset by the Babylonian character first introduced. But then the author almost seemed to apologize for his style, dismiss the character and hurry off to the next one. He then adopts a style of quickly getting you interested in the character and then dropping them off at the dock before you get to have too many wild adventures aboard. Perhaps a few well written biographies would have been better, or a few more wild adventures? I don't know if the personal details about each of these characters necessarily helped. Perhaps either focus on the math or interweave a good biography with the math, but not with so many different characters that you cant get attached to loving the math or the characters. Anyway the math portion was good and I do think that symmetry is important as it has proven time and time again in both math and physics as well as the natural world so its hard to say. Still was a bit boring though, although I liked the subject matter.

[Brett · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a frustrating read. Parts in the first half of the book were insightful and very enjoyable. Unfortunately, large portions of the second half were simply beyond my intellectual firepower. The frustrating part was watching Stewart meander off into the postmodern mathematical wonderland of nonsense. Let me provide a paragraph typical of the last 100 pages:

"The exceptional group G2 also makes an appearance in the latest twist to the story, which Witten calls M-theory. The "M," he says, stands for magic, mystery, or matrix. M-theory posits an 11-dimensional space-time, which unifies all five of the 10-dimensional string theories, in the sense that each can be obtained from M-theory by fixing some of its constants to particular values. In M-theory, Calabi-Yau manifolds are replaced by 7-dimensional spaces known as G2-manifolds, because their symmetries are closely related to Killing's exceptional Lie group G2."

Ugh... am I really supposed to have any idea what he is talking about? I trust Stewart is a brilliant man but several times I wondered if this brilliance is taking him down some mathematical fairy trails.

[Davy Bennett]

Giving to Chinese visitors April 2024.

[Hector López · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oculto en las entrañas de la Teoría de la Relatividad, de la Mecánica Cuántica, la Teoría de Cuerdas, inclusive dentro de la moderna Cosmología, reside un gran concepto: la simetría.

La simetría ha sido por siglos un concepto básico para artistas, arquitectos y músicos, pero dentro de las Matemáticas fue hasta hace poco, una búsqueda recóndita y secreta. Sin embargo en el siglo XX, la simetría surge como una idea fundamental de la Física y la Cosmología. Why Beauty is Truth nos platica esta historia, desde la antigua Babilonia hasta la Física de inicios del siglo XXI.

Es una historia peculiar donde matemáticos que contribuyeron, reflejan la ascendencia de la simetría, sus enigmas y su fuerza dramática. Conoceremos a Girolamo Cardano, el pícaro renacentista italiano, erudito y jugador quien se robó el moderno método de solución de las ecuaciones cúbicas y lo publicó en el primer libro sobre Algebra de importancia.

Sabremos de Evaristo Galois, joven revolucionario quien renovó todas las Matemáticas al fundar el campo de la Teoría de Grupos-solo para morir a la edad de 19 años en un duelo por una mujer y antes de que sus trabajos se publicaran. Tal vez, el más curioso es William Rowan Hamilton, quien labró su más significativo descubrimiento en una puente de piedra entre episodios de delirio alcohólico.

El famoso matemático Ian Stewart nos narra en este libro irresistibles historias de estos y otros excéntricos y ocasionalmente, trágicos genios al ir describiendo como la simetría evoluciona hacia una de las más importantes ideas de las ciencias

Si eres como yo, aficionado de las Matemáticas, tienes que saber de este irresistible libro que nos dona la familia de nuestro amigo y colega, Benito Bucay.

[Dav · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I don't feel I can claim anything close to truly grasping the concepts of mathematical symmetry after reading this book, I do feel I now understand the general structure of various forms of mathematics and how the built upon each other in order to reach the point we are at now. Specifically the point wherein the concepts of symmetry and group theory are being exploited by our most advanced scientists to understand our universe at a quantum level. This books starts at the beginning with the first mathematicians and meanders through time following them as they develop from simple geometry to number theory and algebra up into complex numbers, quarternions on to group theory, Lie groups, topology and more.

This is a book for a general audience, so there is plenty of biographical content on the mathematicians which I sometimes found interesting but I often rushed through these sections as I found myself much more interested in trying to understand the math (although I should say that the lives of many famous mathematicians are more interesting that one might suppose). If there is a real shortcoming to this book it is the author's stated goal of including as few diagrams as possible (based on a publishing industry maxim that each diagram in a popular mathematics book decreases sales by a certain amount). I'm a visual person and often wanted to see concepts expressed graphically.

This book has certainly whetted my appetite for a deeper exploration of many of the mathematical concepts it reviewed! While dancing on an art car one night at Burning Man this year (where I spent a week finishing the book) I watched a grid of lasers mounted on our vehicle shine out on the dancing crowd below. The lasers were undergoing a rotational transformation driven by our dancing which sparked nearly an hour of trying to retrace my way through what I had learned in the book. I wasn't able to do it very well, and I'm a bit torn now between rereading it to see if the concepts settle in more firmly the second time or looking into finding individual books on the subjects (hopefully with plenty of diagrams and exercises).

[Frank R. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Admittedly, I am not a math person. I was hoping this book would contain more interesting prose explaining the math behind the history of physics than equations. Not only did it contain many inaccessible, opaque equations for the uninitiated/math illiterate reader, but it also had next to no quantity of interesting prose explaining the math behind the history of physics either.

I found this dry, boring, but detailed in the history of the big movers and shakers in the history of math and science. The first chapter on Babylonian scribes was absolutely cringe-worthy and I was amazed that it was included in such a “serious” book. The last two chapters were superfluous. Reading them was like watching a few dud bottle rockets shoot up and fizzle out after an already un-astounding climax of big-box fireworks.

Am I being overly dramatic about this book? Perhaps…I think anyone without a math background should brush up on their knowledge of complex numbers, algebra, etc. before they start this one. Also, be prepared for dry history (maybe you’ll like that?). The only redeeming quality of this book for me was pages 230-258 where Stewart finally starts describing various particles, the search for the existence of gravitons, and various theories of the fabric of space-time (like the concept of “twisted space time” = Matter itself).

I don’t know whether the geniuses, the pseudo-intellectuals, or the complete snobs of Goodreads voted this one deserving of such a high rating but to me, it’s the pits. There are more accessible reads—even those explaining the mathematics—for nonprofessional mathematicians and I’m compiling that
Tbr list now.

[Carl]

I have read a lot of science in the past few years but not much math. This humbling reading experience helps me realize just how little I know.

Here's a paragraph (page 168):

The four structures that Killing refers to are the Lie algebras su(n), so(2n), so(2n+1), and sp(2n) corresponding to the families of groups SU(n), SO(2n), SO(2n+1), and SP(2n): the unitary groups, the orthogonal groups in spaces of even dimension, the orthogonal groups in spaces of odd dimension, and the symplectic groups in spaces of even dimension. The symplectic groups are the symmetries of the position-momentum variables introduced by Hamilton in his formulation of mechanics, and the number of dimensions is always even because the variables come in position-momentum pairs. Aside from these four families, Killing claimed that exactly six other simple Lie algebras exist.

Whaaaa?

It is to Stewart's credit that I have a vague idea of what he's talking about, because before I started this book I would have lost him completely after the first "that". Other than my basic knowledge of syntax, which helps me by reinforcing that "Killing" and "Lie" are people and not common English words in this context, the rest of this skitters away from me like the shards of a glass I have dropped on the kitchen floor. I'm not putting that back together in any useful way!

I find it fascinating, though. The story of symmetry -- which just starts to coalesce in my head at around the aforementioned page, halfway through the book -- is in part the story of mathematicians: a collection of stubbornness, self-centeredness, genius, curiosity, focus, sour grapes, and flat-out bad luck.

What do I really understand now that I'm done? Not sure. But I do feel a bit of dawn creeping over the horizon now and then. Proceeding from the pure math section into the theoretical physics chapter didn't really click the symmetry light on as I hoped it would.

Of course, I picked up the book because I was curious about how I could apply its ideas to the study of literature! So far, I'm thinking this was a pipe dream....

[Daniel Cunningham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was, as advertised, a history of symmetry; I feel that I did not get a good understanding for what exactly symmetry is, in a more advanced sense, however, which is partially what I was after. Being able to perform an operation on an 'object' and not change it... got it. But when he starts talking about Lie groups, it all went a bit fuzzy for me. I know math (and science) books avoid like the plague actually having math in them, but this would have benefited from e.g. 'psuedocode' examples of what the various symmetries are/do, collected together at some point. Maybe crammed into an appendix for the more interested reader, etc. The cryptic notation (SO(2), E4, etc.) is fine, and what else are you going to call the things anyway, but without *something* concrete to hang those names off of it all becomes a hash. For me anyway.

Nonetheless, it was an entertaining read, and fairly quick at that.

[James Lancelot · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent the first 2/3 of this book hating it and I couldn't figure out why. I loved the last third, but the first part was a slog and it wasn't until I sat down to write this review that I figured out why.

I thought at first that the subtitle of this book "A History of Symmetry" was what this book would be about (and it is), but writing this review made me realize that the Stewart was serious about the main title and about Beauty being truth. And unfortunately for me, I had (have?) no sense for mathematical beauty and no drive to do mathematics for fun. I disliked the beginning of this book because it felt like Stewart valued the idea of beauty so highly and I didn't understand at all what he meant by it. I didn't see what was so beautiful about the mathematics he showed, it just felt like a bunch of purely academic problems loosely linked by the idea of symmetry. It didn't help that I got the feeling that I was just too dumb to understand what mathematical beauty was.

The last ~90 pages were related to physics and they helped redeem the book, but it wasn't until I started writing this review and thought more about the book and about Stewart's goals to see whether or he achieved them or not. I feel like I understand what the point was and I changed my mind. (It started as a 2/5, but after the last 5ish chapters it ended as a 4/5 and upon reflection I'm considering 5/5)
________

Stewart explains one of his goals with the book: "Why Beauty is Truth tells how mathematicians stumbled upon the concept of symmetry, and how an apparently useless search for what turned out to be an impossible formula opened a new window on the universe and revolutionized science and mathematics." And he uses the first half of the book to explain the discoveries of algebra because "the profoundly beautiful and indispensable concept of concept of symmetry that mathematicians and physicists use today arrived via algebra."

Stewart's ultimate objective with this book is to show the value of mathematics for its own sake. He uses the first ~172 pages of the book to show mathematical problems that were solved just because people wanted to solved them. He says of Euclid's Elements,

"[its] main emphasis is on logic and proof, and there is not hint of practical applications. The most important feature of the Elements, for our story, is not what it contains but what it does not... Euclid did not provide any method for: Dividing an angle into three exactly equal parts ('trisecting the angle'). Constructing a regular 7-sided polygon. Constructing a line whose length is equal to the the circumference of a circle ('rectifying the circle'). Constructing a square whose area is equal to that of a given circle ('squaring the circle'). Constructing a cube whose volume is exactly twice that of a given cube ('duplicating the cube')."

And one of the values of pure mathematics (mathematics for its own sake) is the invention of new tools to solve problems that couldn't have been solved before. The things Euclid left out, problems like "squaring the circle", were proved to be impossible with compass and straightedge but they were possible by other means and,

"When someone invents a powerful new method to characterize those things that can be constructed using straightedge and compass, and distinguish them from those that cannot, then you have an entirely new way of thinking And with that come new thoughts, new problems, new solutions—and new mathematical theories and tools. No one can use a tool that hasn't been built. You can't call a friend on your cell phone if cell phones don't exist. You can't eat a spinach souffle if no one has invented agriculture or discovered fire. So tool-building can be at least as important as problem-solving."

Solving "useless" problems led to the development of new algebraic tools to solve and the new tools led to the discovery of groups and group symmetry. The last ~90 pages are spent explaining how beauty and symmetry have applied to physics and why the next advances in physics seem likely to be due to the search for mathematical beauty, "In old-fashioned quantum theory, a key principle is symmetry, and that's the case in string theory too. So of course [a type of symmetry group] Lie groups get in on the act. Everything hinges on those Lie groups of symmetries, and again the exceptional groups stick out—not as sore thumbs, but as opportunities for unusual coincidences that could help make the physics work."

The biggest shortcoming of this book is how unclear the idea of mathematical beauty is. Stewart cautions, "None of us can say why beauty is truth, and truth beauty. We can only contemplate the infinite complexity of the relationship."

He describes beauty as, "more significant than mere truth. Many points of view yield true descriptions of nature, but some provide more insight than others." Which seems to make the claim that depth of insight is a measure of a mathematical discovery's beauty. Later he says,

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty... if unhappily proved false, [string theory] is nevertheless more interesting than whatever is true. But we have learned that beautiful theories need not be true, and until the verdict on superstrings is in, this possibility must remain pure conjecture."

This book is a good one and Stewart makes a very convincing case for mathematical beauty as a guide and for the value of mathematics "for its own sake". Stewart is very careful to not get carried away with the search for beauty and he warns, "But perhaps at root the universe is ugly. Perhaps there is no root to be at. These are not appealing thoughts, but who are we to impose our parochial aesthetic on the cosmos."

[Artem Huletski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Хотел прочитать лёгкую книгу о красоте, а вышло про живущее в 11-мерном пространстве суперсимметричное обобщение эйнштейновской теории гравитации.

[Almudena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un recorrido la historia de las matemáticas y la física de la simetría. Se me ha hecho denso... pero esperaba una reflexión sobre el dilema que plantea el título y no hay mucho de eso.

[Uladzislau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Не самая удачная книга Иэна Стюарта. Много биографий, мало собственно математики. Особенно хотелось бы более обширного рассмотрения теории групп, как ключевой математической теории структур, без ее внятного изложения ко второй половине книге теряешься в материале. Отчего важность симметрии в концепциях современной математики осталась у меня по прежнему на интуитивном уровне, отрефлексировать ее не получилось. Еще более конспективно автор излагает симметрию в физических концепциях. В чем смысл калибровочной симметрии, я так и не понял, а очень хотелось.
Но самый главный недостаток книги связан не с ее автором, как ни странно, а с переводчиком. Перевод-то сам по себе хорошо очень даже, но переводчик отчего-то решил украсить книгу многочисленными ремарками по ходу авторского текста, притом по большей части изложены они столь высокомерно, что Стюарт каким-то недоучкой выглядит, хотя многие его упрощения логично сделаны в рамках концепции "книги без формул" (хотя вот эта идея не кажется разумной, ее бы и стоило обоснованно покритиковать). Переводил книгу Алексей Семихатов - известный популяризатор, но в комментариях его откровенно подзанесло, лучше не обращать на них внимания.
В целом книгу можно порекомендовать разве что фанатам Иэна Стюарта, а так потраченного времени она вряд ли стоит.

[Eric Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads more like an account of history rather than a documentation of the various symmetries in science and math. Certainly the author introduces only mathematicians and scientists relevant to the affair but he seems to spend more time on their lives than he spends on lucid and approachable descriptions of “symmetries”. Even as someone with a background in higher-level mathematics, I found his attempts to straddle both approachability and avoid over-simplification to be unsuccessful and failed in both regards as the ideas grew more complex; this was especially true in the discussions of gauge symmetries and string theory.

Overall, I think this may be an okay introduction for the layman to symmetries in math and science but I certainly think the book could have been bettered by having spent more time choosing more carefully constructed analogies. Also, no mention of Emmy Noether! This makes me skeptical of the author’s “physics chops” to have not included some of her work.

At the very least, this book has made clear that symmetry has been a driving force in number theory and GUTs but I couldn’t tell you in detail what exactly that means but to that end I’ve been motivated to pick up a few books on abstract algebra, topology, and group theory.

[Katok · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked the book because I wanted to know why beauty is truth. I'll save your time by giving away the answer. It is on the page 13 of the preface: no one knows why beauty is truth. I felt a bit disappointed, but continued reading for another 100+ pages. But then I quit.

This book seems to be written under the assumption that math is too boring or intimidating for readers - despite the obvious fact that the reader chose a book about math. The author tries to make mathematics “interesting” by focusing on the lives of mathematicians but by the halfway point the author did not manage to present either math or mathematicians in an engaging way.
The stories about historical figures feel overly dramatic, and apparently did not involve much fact-checking (the story about Omar Khayyam is impressive, but false). From endless tales of tragedy, betrayal, war, death, the author jumps... no, not to explaining the mathematical theories, but rather to stating that they exist and that they are important and have some features.

The result is a confusing mismatch. The author teats the readers as though they have barely graduated beyond basic arithmetic, yet it is impossible to get the ideas mentioned in the book without prior knowledge and understanding of the mentioned concepts.

[Nicola Di Leva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Questo mi è piaciuto meno di un altro suo libro che avevo letto, perché, pur andando in ordine cronologico, mi è sembrato mancare di struttura: all'inizio si dilunga molto nella storia della matematica antica, poi inframmezza il discorso con aneddoti sulla vita dei matematici (capisco che servano ad alleggerire e umanizzare, però a volte è solo gossip)... a metà libro si inizia a parlare di simmetria, ma poi il tema scompare e riappare. Il libro diventa più matematico, quindi più interessante, nella seconda metà e alcune pagine sono un piacere da leggere. Quindi tutto sommato una buona lettura, ma rimane un senso di confusione.
Piccolo appunto: spero che i futuri libri di divulgazione matematica si ricordino che esistono anche le donne: si parla sempre di "storia dell'uomo", "gli uomini"... ed Emmy Noether è menzionata di sfuggita (!), mentre di matematici uomini meno celebri si racconta pure che mestiere facevano i genitori.

[cooldash · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun popular history of how the study of symmetries has influenced the course of mathematics and physics. Full of biographical details about key mathematicians and scientists, and generally accessible to anyone with a passing interest in math and science.

One glaring omission is the complete absence of any discussion of crystallography! Unforgivable! To add to the insult, the cover has a picture of a Morpho butterfly, whose vividly iridescent wings are the result of natural photonic crystals, which are highly symmetric structures. The irony is painful.

Oh, and the diagram showing the symmetries of the triangle has a mistake: the labels on two of the reflections appear to be swapped. That was a sloppy mistake.

[Kseniia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Вот всё-таки интересно, на какую аудиторию рассчитана книга? На тех, кому надо объяснять, что 2^3- это 2х2х2, а 3 - это показатель степени, или же на тех, кто разбирается в группах Галуа и не нуждается в примерах их использования? Раздражали огромные биографии учёных, приводимые в книге. Ну не хочу я знать, сколько было детей у какого-нибудь математика и в котором часу дня он умер! Хотела бы - взяла бы другую книгу. Не способствовали возникновению симпатии и ошибки в датах, хорошо, что переводчик в примечаниях давал верные значения. В общем, не срослось у меня пока с этой книгой. Попробую подойти к ней позже с чуть большим багажом знаний.

[Islomjon · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Why Beauty Is Truth" lacks its enthusiastic charm. I should admit that book took my attention while reading about Babylonians and Greeks, even it was interesting to read about Arabic science and Renaissance Italy. However, after some time I barely hold my attention and keeping myself from skipping pages.

Nevertheless, Ian Stewart had given a huge effort to create masterful text and interesting narration. It's worth to note that he included facts about famous mathematicians' lives and contributions to the science such as Cordano, Gauss and (new mathematician for me) Éverete Galois, etc.

[Zach Tentor · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Stewart did get a bit lost in the mathematical weeds at some points during this book, the message and take away from this book is phenomenal. I followed the quantum mechanics, supersymmetry, string theory, but was still a bit confused on the quintics and octonions...perhaps I should do some more studying. Overall, Stewart emphasizes the preeminent role of beauty in mathematical truth and the supportive role in physical truth. By contrasting these two disciplines, a greater understanding of the practicals behind the relationship of beauty to truth can be understood.

[Freddy Giorgi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A verdade e a matemática liberta

Você pode negar a matemática por gosto, contudo nunca poderá ousar dizer que ela não é importante. Esse livro de certa forma é uma carta de amor a matemática , a estética e o extinto não tão despretensioso de nos seres humanos.
Que mesmo tentamos nos mover a partir de nossas pulsões, tudo tende para que tentamos transformar ideias e pensamentos em métrica, em raciocínio lógico por assim dizer.
Boa leitura

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought it was so much fun getting into the minds of the Geometor cults and how the great mathmaticians thought when they discovered these formulas that kind of shoned alot of light on to reality using just numbers and the relationship between numbers.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is where I learned about the monster group.

[Farah Nasir · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute joy to read!

[Joseph Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this. Beautiful physics requires some beautiful mathematics. Great storytelling and flow, even if you're familiar with most topics and people.

[Sonja Lars · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love for symmetry, math, and storytelling come together satisfyingly.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.