The Joy of x

A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity

By: Steven Strogatz

Narrated by: Jonathan Yen

Many people take math in high school and promptly forget much of it. But math plays a part in all of our lives all of the time, whether we know it or not. In The Joy of x, Steven Strogatz expands on his hit New York Times series to explain the big ideas of math gently and clearly, with wit, and insight.

Whether he is illuminating how often you should flip your mattress to get the maximum lifespan from it, explaining just how Google searches the internet, or determining how many people you should date before settling down, Strogatz shows how math connects to every aspect of life. Discussing pop culture, medicine, law, philosophy, art, and business, Strogatz is the math teacher you wish you'd had. Whether you aced integral calculus or aren't sure what an integer is, you'll find profound wisdom and persistent delight in The Joy of x.

©2012 Steven Strogatz (P)2019 Tantor

Good listen

Enjoyed the book. It was recommended by a friend and didn't disappoint. A great read if you liked or curious about math but don't understand the practical use of math. It does a great good pointing out the purpose of math in the real world that's not taught in school.

Interesting but fairly basic

Targeted at people who lack an intuitive grasp of math. Those who understand math will find a lot of the material too basic, but will still learn a few good tidbits

Too short

Too Short. Is there a sequel? enjoyed it very much and will look for similar mathematics books.

Incredible read

Amazing book that makes much of mathematics accessible and fun. One of the rare books that should get better with every read/listen.

Very interesting but diagrams are hard to follow sometimes

There are a lot of diagrams that aren’t always easy to imagine. A companion of illustrations would fix that.

An imaginative and refreshing review of many interesting math ideas

Stepfather does a good job of connecting with my mind most of the time. I get new and fresh perspectives on many things. A pdf or image would have helped me during the set theory and infinity discussion.

Math needs unite!

I love this book! And I finally learned why I was taught calculus. All s

Great! Buy get the paper version if you can.

Another great book by Strogatz. He does a great job making math personable and fun. The only down size is the fact that having someone read you equations is not very easy to follow. Get the paper version instead. Also, read this one first before going to Infinite Powers, as that one deals with higher level math. This book is good for elementary level math.

A good book to read but not a good AUDIBE book

This would be a good book to read on paper but only a good one to hear. It is clear from the (excellent) narrator that there are diagrams, images and formulas printed in the book that illustrate and illuminate the text but the listener can not see. This is particularly true in the sections on the geometric approximation of pi, limits, two holed torus shortest distances, and the Hilbert infinite hotel diagram. The section on conditional probability may have been the best part of the book as it is so often misused in medical and legal circles. Mathematics is a beautiful and elegant subject but deserves images to compliment words.

Enjoyed and found it interesting

I don’t have a mathematical background but I found nuggets that were very interesting. The book is an easy listen.