I'll be the first to admit that math intimidates me. Yet I'm also strangely fascinated by it and how intertwined mathematics is with the physical world around us.

I wasn't sure I was going to understand and enjoy Weird Math. I braced myself for the worst- long equations with weird characters that belong in a bubble over a cartoon character's head in my Sunday funnies. However, I got just the opposite. The authors, Darting and Banerjee, really went out of their way to make this accessible to anyone and everyone. Their mission was to not shy away from subjects because they were tough. They adopted a mantra that if they couldn't explain it in plain language then they didn't really understand it themselves. And they were successful.in my opinion. I found myself intrigued on the topics cover, turning from one page to the next just, as eagerly as I would a Dan Brown novel.

This is a great book, but almost the opposite of what the subtitle promises. I expected to find some interesting applied mathematics to everyday experience. There is none of that, only a few unconvincing lists of pure mathematical results that were later discovered to be useful (quantum and relativistic physics, plus cryptography, feature prominently as always; I call these unconvincing because if you look closely you find the connections between the pure math and the applications are weaker both historically and intellectually than they appear; and in any case this book does not examine them).

This book does something much more interesting and original. It discusses pure mathematical results in terms that make the questions reasonable and the answers comprehensible, without the need for either formal mathematical training or painstaking logic. There is also some history and other human interest thrown in.

Most mathematics education tends to concentrate on applied mathematics (such as finding the maximum of a quadratic function) or rote versions of pure mathematics (for example, elementary geometric proofs). I personally see little value in either of these. They may ignite a real interest in math for students with high math ability, and they do provide some useful tools that some other students will apply in science or engineering fields, but they leave most students hating math, and little use for what they've learned. Moreover those students who do benefit from the classes will likely have to relearn things properly later.

This book seems designed to ignite an interest in mathematics for students without high math ability, or perhaps with high math ability they never realized because they got so bored in class. It naturally introduces important ideas in pure mathematics in ways anyone can appreciate, and explains some of the answers; answers that would require high talent and years of study to derive, but can be explained in general to anyone. It will also interest no-nonsense applied mathematicians in suggesting how some fields of higher mathematics can make complicated or impossible applied problems simple.

The book is easy enough to read an understand for an intelligent middle-school student, but will also teach some serious mathematics to nearly all adults who are not professional mathematicians. It's well-written enough to be read for pleasure even without thinking deeply about the math, but also precise enough to get a reader started on important pure mathematics questions that happen to appeal to her (I emphasize "started," the book does not teach the mathematics necessary to answer these questions, only to formulate them and to understand what an answer would consist of; it's not a map, it's just a piece of paper with your location and your goal marked, you'll have to do a lot of study or thinking--probably both--to begin to trace out paths).

I recommend this book to anyone who likes recreational mathematics, but there are lots of equally good books for those people. I particularly recommend this book to smart people, children or adults, who don't think they like pure mathematics, but don't know much about it. Some will read this book and confirm their belief that they have no interest in the field, but I think many (most?) will at least understand what pure mathematics is and why it interests other people; and perhaps discover a talent or love for the field in themselves.

David Darling and Agnijo Banerjee delight the reader with a very curious, if not strange surprise. This is math with equations and numbers, but these are but details, these authors show you the real stuff, the actual mathematical concepts that lie behind, through and throughout nature. Well done. I suspect they were sick of the old stereotypes about mathematics and that's why they did this book. I have not read a better exposition mathematics in nature than here. Nothing in this felt like work, it was a delight that kept you turning the page. I highly recommend this book to anyone from a professional mathematician or a math-phobic reader who thinks they can never get it.

This book was unique and interesting. I have always struggled with math. This book showed me how relevant it is to my everyday life. There are so many ways that it affects me that I never considered.

Strangely enough, I had a conversation with a teen-ager, the day before I started reading “Weird Math," about how to visualize 4 dimensions. I’ve been a math tutor for over twenty years, and “Weird Math” is *exactly* the math that appeals to the thinking student of mathematics. The questions in this book, “Can we see 4 dimensions?”, “What is randomness?” “Where is infinity?” are particularly compelling to the contemplative high school math student. I plan to add this book to my book shelf to supplement my students’ mathematical explorations.