Matt Parker

Author of Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors and Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension

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Book Recommendations:

Recommended by Matt Parker

There is no better tour guide to the wonders of geometry than the delightful David Acheson. (from Amazon)

How can we be sure that Pythagoras's theorem is really true? Why is the 'angle in a semicircle' always 90 degrees? And how can tangents help determine the speed of a bullet? David Acheson takes the reader on a highly illustrated tour through the history of geometry, from ancient Greece to the present day. He emphasizes throughout elegant deduction and practical applications, and argues that geometry can offer the quickest route to the whole spirit of mathematics at its best. Along the way, we encounter the quirky and the unexpected, meet the great personalities involved, and uncover some of the loveliest surprises in mathematics.