Math Without Numbers

By: Milo Beckman

Narrated by: Soneela Nankani

An audio tour of the structures and patterns we call "math"

This is an audiobook about math, but it contains no numbers.

Math Without Numbers is a vivid, conversational, and wholly original guide to the three main branches of abstract math - topology, analysis, and algebra - which turn out to be surprisingly easy to grasp. This audiobook upends the conventional approach to math, inviting you to think creatively about shape and dimension, the infinite and infinitesimal, symmetries, proofs, and how these concepts all fit together. What awaits listeners is a freewheeling tour of the inimitable joys and unsolved mysteries of this curiously powerful subject.

Like the classic math allegory Flatland, first published over a century ago, or Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach 40 years ago, there has never been a math book quite like Math Without Numbers. So many popularizations of math have dwelt on numbers like pi or zero or infinity. This audiobook goes well beyond to questions such as: How many shapes are there? Is anything bigger than infinity? And is math even true? Milo Beckman shows why math is mostly just pattern recognition and how it keeps on surprising us with unexpected, useful connections to the real world.

The ambitions of this audiobook take a special kind of author. An inventive, original thinker pursuing his calling with jubilant passion. A prodigy. Milo Beckman completed the graduate-level course sequence in mathematics at age 16, when he was a sophomore at Harvard; while writing this book, he was studying the philosophical foundations of physics at Columbia under Brian Greene, among others.

This audiobook includes a PDF of illustrations and additional concepts from the book.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Milo Beckman (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“With charm, unwavering enthusiasm, and a lot of cartoons, Math Without Numbers waltzes the reader through a garden of higher mathematics.” (Jordan Ellenberg, professor of mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of How Not To Be Wrong)

“A playful paean to the pleasures of studying higher math ... Readers with an abundance of curiosity and the time to puzzle over Beckman’s many examples, riddles, and questions, will make many fascinating discoveries.” (Publishers Weekly)

“A pleasant, amusing look at mathematics as a description of everything.” (Kirkus Reviews)

Better than infinity, worse than the continuum.

It’s fun, although unnecessary political at times. It just spoken math, great and will help you understand it as an art. Math really isn’t “true” just a “fun” art that happens to be practical. This book touched on both the art and sci

Very engaging

I enjoyed the journey through the topics and challenges to the mind. This is a friendly and candid read about how maths impact our lives and thinking.

I learned something

Pros: I learned that math is ever evolving.

Cons: It got wired when the narrator started talking to herself. I really didn’t get the point. It felt like she was talking to a child or a teenager in order to get her point across. Despite listening to the entire book, I literally tuned out and should have moved onto something else. It was not that good of a book to me.

A wonderful introduction to mathematics

I have read and listened to a ridiculous amount of books. What this book did better than almost any I have ever read is condense and simplify information in the clearest and most accessible way. Some books are simple at the cost of rigor, clarity or depth. This manages to check all the boxes. Truly an astonishing achievement.

Decent

I wanted a little more depth but I understand the market has a bias towards novice or expert. Worth the time

please leave your politics at home

A little bit all over the place, but an interesting view into one mathematician's head.
Worth a Listen.
The "Fundamentals" chapter veered into whether mathematics is a racist, imperialist, sexist, CIS-gender endeavor..for 20 minutes...
Presented as a dialogue between two women. Reading what a (self-loathing) white dude wrote.

Informative and fun, but very short and a touch of unnecessary politics

It was a fun listen and doesn’t take long. It’s a short book and the narrator performance is spot on. Most of the book ahead decent story to it and the attached PDF is helpful, but being mathematically inclined and familiar with much of the book offerings I didn’t need it.

What was a turn off was the little bit of using political examples to shore up a meaning when there are better examples. No need to do this when the world if divided. You will find if your politics lean one way use positive examples on both sides. Or stay away from it altogether. This will get a wider audience interested in math which we need and not needlessly turn anyone away.

I deserve an apology

Three chapters in and we still haven't learned anything about math. I could have google searched 3 words and saved myself an hour. However, it might be a good thing to put on repeat if one has a difficult time sleeping.