A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age

A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age - Paperback

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A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age
  • A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age
A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age - Paperback

A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age - Paperback

by Alec Wilkinson
$20.00
$20.00

Book Overview

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

"Wilkinson has accomplished something more moving and original, braiding his stumbling attempts to get better at math with his deepening awareness that there's an entire universe of understanding that will, in some fundamental sense, forever lie outside his reach." --Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

"There is almost no writer I admire as much as I do Alec Wilkinson. His work has enduring brilliance and humanity." --Susan Orlean, author of The Library Book

A spirited, metaphysical exploration into math's deepest mysteries and conundrums at the crux of middle age.

Decades after struggling to understand math as a boy, Alec Wilkinson decides to embark on a journey to learn it as a middle-aged man. What begins as a personal challenge--and it is challenging--soon transforms into something greater than a belabored effort to learn math. Despite his incompetence, Wilkinson encounters a universe of unexpected questions in his pursuit of mathematical knowledge and quickly becomes fascinated; soon, his exercise in personal growth (and torture) morphs into an intellectually expansive exploration.

In A Divine Language, Wilkinson, a contributor to The New Yorker for more than forty years, journeys into the heart of the divine aspects of mathematics--its mysteries, difficulties, and revelations--from antiquity to the present. As he submits himself to the lure of deep mathematics, he takes the reader through his investigations into the subject's big questions: number theory and the creation of numbers, the debate over math's human or otherworldly origins, problems and equations that remain unsolved after centuries, the conundrum of prime numbers. Writing with warm humor and sharp observation as he traverses practical math's endless frustrations and rewards, Wilkinson provides an awe-inspiring account of an adventure in a land of strange sights. Part memoir, part metaphysical travel book, and part journey in self-improvement, A Divine Language is one man's second attempt at understanding the numbers in front of him and the world beyond.
ISBN9781250168597
Author Alec Wilkinson
PublisherPicador USA
GenreBiography and Education
FormatPaperback
PublishedJuly 2023
LanguageENG- English
Pages304
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Biography & Autobiography Mathematics Nonfiction

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About Alec Wilkinson

Alec Wilkinson began writing for The New Yorker in 1980. Before that, he was a policeman in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and before that a rock-and-roll musician. He has published eight other books--two memoirs, two collections of essays, two biographical portraits, and two pieces of reporting. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lyndhurst Prize, and a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He lives with his wife and son in New York City.

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