Explaining math demands great visuals. I should know: I explain math for a living, and I cannot draw. Like, at all. The LA Times art director once compared my cartoons to the work of children and institutionalized patients. (He printed them anyway.) In the nerdier corners of the internet, I’m known as the “Math with Bad Drawings” guy, and as a purveyor of artless art, I’ve developed an eye for the good stuff: striking visuals that bring mathematical concepts to life. Here are five books that blow my stick figures out of the water. (But please buy my book anyway, if for no deeper reason than pity.)
I wrote...
Math Games with Bad Drawings: 75 1/4 Simple, Challenging, Go-Anywhere Games--And Why They Matter
By
Ben Orlin
What is my book about?
It's the ultimate mathematical game chest: 70-plus games, playable with just paper, pens, and the occasional handful of coins. Drawing from Argentine puzzle magazines, Japanese schoolyards, Parisian universities, and everywhere in between, I hand-picked the games with three adjectives in mind: (1) fun, (2) thought-provoking, and (3) easy to play. Each takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. Better yet, each brings out the best in human thought, from cognitive psychology to quantum mechanics.
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The Books I Picked & Why
The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
By
Norton Juster
Why this book?
Picking up this short picture book, I expected a dose of Phantom Toolbooth-esque wordplay. Not at all. This five-minute love story, about a line yearning for a dot, somehow enlarges into a meditation on geometric structure itself. From such a brief book, I didn’t expect new insights about how simple geometry underlies our most intricate thinking—but then again, that’s what delightful visuals will do for you.
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The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer
By
Sydney Padua
Why this book?
I had to read this one twice. First, with just the pictures, it’s a lighthearted steampunk fantasy: episodic tales of Victorian humor and cool mathematics. Second, reading the copious footnotes and endnotes, it’s something heftier: an exhaustively researched account of two pivotal figures in math history. Padua’s art is so skillful I’m not even jealous, just awed.
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Nature's Chaos
By
James Gleick,
Eliot Porter
Why this book?
I admire James Gleick’s Chaos. Who doesn’t? It’s a landmark book, a masterpiece of science writing. But let’s be real: it’s not exactly a beach read, is it? If Chaos is a complex aged wine, then this book is a simple autumn cider: a photographic collage of nature’s fractals, sweetened with a splash of Gleick’s lyrical prose.
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Anno's Math Games III
By
Mitsumasa Anno
Why this book?
I stumbled on this in a used bookstore. What a find! The old-school, kid-friendly illustrations lead swiftly from simple beginnings (“What happens when you stretch a painting?”) to the depths of undergraduate topology. I haven’t used this in the classroom yet, but honestly, I could imagine busting it out with anyone from first-graders to first-year PhD candidates.
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Am I Overthinking This?: Over-Answering Life's Questions in 101 Charts
By
Michelle Rial
Why this book?
I adore these images. Each is like a tiny memoir wrapped in a graph. Even beyond the puzzle-like pleasure of decoding them, I love Rial’s playful use of real objects. Coffee rings form a Venn diagram about coffee addiction. Floss traces a line graph on dental hygiene. Half-eaten cheese sticks become the bars on a chart of cheese consumption. A delicious book, in every sense!
