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1. Best Popular Mathematics Book I know of
   There just aren’t many good popular math books. This book is honestly a jewel and Du Sautoy’s finest work yet. He presents math as the “the art of the shortcut”, and shows how certain mathematical tricks can be employed to find the metaphorical “shortest path” to the solution. The book is also a romp through many sophisticated maths ideas, ranging from probability theory to the basics of computational complexity, all presented with his trademark clarity.

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2. 4 stars
   A good popular mathematics book, with material that ranged from “fascinating” to “over my head.”

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3. Inspiring
   This book has become one of my favorites. Engaging and easy to read, it has definitely helped me to open my mind towards different ways of thinking.

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4. Overall Great But Some Specious Claims About Pandemic
   Book started off great but it only took him 23 pages before he made some specious and non-specific claims about the pandemic. No evidence, no examples, nothing, just an arbitrary and dubious claim of healthcare systems getting overwhelmed.

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5. I just didn’t get much out of this
   This book is basically a collection of mathematical techniques that have been developed to solve problems. Unfortunately, there was very little in this book that I hadn’t already come across in my studies. If you have already read other layperson books in physics and math or have a technical scientific/mathematical background, you probably won’t come across much that is new to you. Also, the title may be misleading to some. There’s not much here that I felt could be generalized to actually “Thinking better”. That’s a vague title and the message is not really explained in more detail. Instead, what’s emphasized more is that these mathematical examples are shortcuts in getting from point A to point point B. I personally don’t think that’s the best point to emphasize, and it’s definitely not really what’s going to help one “think better”. To me, they are much more than mere shortcuts. The mechanics of thought that went into developing the mathematics, and they way these equations can give a connection between quantities otherwise unseen is where the insight is and worth the emphasis, I think, if we want to “think better”. I also found a couple points he made regarding physics that were a little misleading. This book just didn’t really do it for me.

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6. More math than practical application.
   While the premise is teasing, few real world examples.

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7. Overhyped. Needs more diagrams.
   Some intriguing math solutions but not as transferable to other disciplines as advertised. At times, reads more like a motivational speaker than a mathematician! In his wrap up, he says, “I might end up putting in just as much work to find the shortcut.” Definitely needed more diagrams (even though there are quite a few). Statistics was most engaging chapter and probability pretty good but harder to follow. Grammar drove me to distraction: continually used “they” and “them” for “he” and “him.” And silly appeals to evolution. If he’d apply probabilities to Darwinism, he’d see the absurdity of it. He says things like “It may be that Nature has already figured this out.” Humanity’s greatest minds wrestle to come up with solution that a supposedly mindless force manages!

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8. Why not cite Herman Simon
   In the 50’s Herbert Simon did groundbreaking work on short cuts, which he called heuristics. His work has had broad applications in multiple fields. Much of this book is clearly building on Simon’s work and he deserves to be more prominently referenced in the book description.

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9. I enjoyed so much this reading

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10. Sono rimasta delusa, visto la brillantezza del precedente “l’Enigma dei numeri primi”.Gli argomenti trattati sono tutti molto noti e già utilizzati in altri contesti, e magari qualche formula in più, visto che si parla di matematica, sarebbe stata apprezzata.Persona indubbiamente brillante, ha fatto di meglio

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11. arrived on time, no issues

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12. The Feynman diagram 5.9 on page 161 appears to be missing the positron ? (See photo)For a book about “shortcuts”, please do not “shortcut” the error checking process 🙂

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13. The book is about various topics in mathematics and how they provide shortcuts that can be used in different fields of daily life to find solutions to seemingly daunting problems. These shortcuts speed up the computations and free time for you to do other things. Each chapter of the book starts with a puzzle that the reader is asked to solve. Then the main content of the chapter is related to the puzzle, while the solution is provided in the end.I’ve already read The Music of the Primes that was also written by Marcus and thoroughly enjoyed it. What makes this book to stand out in comparison to The Music of The Primes is that it’s focused on practical advise that could be actioned by readers. But what I find most compelling about this book is that reading it is not enough to get the most out of the content, there is also a need to play with the content of each chapter, carefully examining it. Otherwise the subtle details and insight could be lost and not understood properly.Marcus tries to present his ideas in a way that is accessible to a reader who is not supposed to be a math expert. That is why it seems his approach is to use as little of math terminology and formulas as possible. Even the word ‘formula’ doesn’t show up until page 20 into the book. This approach to writing popular science books is not new and it tries to achieve a trade off between a number of readers who may be frightened by the mathematical notation, and the number of readers who could be disappointed by the lack of it. Even though Marcus doesn’t shy away from writing down some equations to exactly convey his ideas, there are places in the book where additional mathematical details could clarify his point even better. I also suggest to name the math objects as they are used in mathematics. There is no harm in doing that just like Steven Strogatz did in The Joy of x or John Derbyshire in the Unknown Quantity books. Proper math notation doesn’t frighten, but could actually help readers understand concepts better.All in all, this book provides joyful reading experience.

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