Is Maths Real?: How Simple Questions Lead Us to Mathematics’ Deepest Truths Paperback – 6 Jun. 2024

Creates ideas.

Provides really nice, reader friendly, insights into the basics of maths, especially number theory. A bit too "me!, me!" for many tastes when it comes to telling us about personal likes and dislikes, plus she comes across as a grossly over-simplistic social historian. Nevertheless well worth reading for the mathematical insights provided, which are a lot deeper than may be thought at first sight.

It's almost like reading two books in one. First you get the maths in an engaging way that makes you ask the questions and more importantly explains the answers that way your teachers never did. And it also shows you where maths overlaps with real and relevant areas of our lives where genuine impacts can be made by framing your maths. Great stuff, loved every minute of it.

I struggled through a third of it, increasingly frustrated by the author’s tendency to insert her own gender and racial politics into as many situations as she could.Then I came here to see if I was the only one. I wasn’t. I love books, but this one got torn in half and recycled. Absolutely insufferable.

I enjoyed reading this book; it offers plenty of food for thought.

Didn't make it past the first couple of pages of the second chapter, by which time I'd been treated to the authors opinions on sexism, racism and colonialism to mention just a few 'isms. The lady seems to have completely missed the point that it is advertised as a book on mathematics.

Well worth reading for general thoughts on mathematics and its foundations.A side note: This book has some fragments that use the ugly discriminatory DEI language from CRT. Shows social and racial bias of the author. Injects some questionable political views. One star less as these are harmful to gullible or young readers.

I am not prepared to publicly discuss the politics expressed in this book but I feel it my duty to say I gave up on this book after a little over halfway as I got fed up with it. I honestly don’t feel such things have a place in a maths book.