Mathematics: A very short introduction by Timothy Gowers, OUP, £6.99, ISBN 0192853619 Reviewed by Elizabeth Sourbut
TIMOTHY Gowers has the task of covering the whole of mathematics in a truly pocket-sized book, part of a series whose subject matter ranges from a single person to an entire religion. He makes a very good job of introducing such a huge topic, one that could easily have been distributed between half a dozen separate volumes.
Gowers has structured Mathematics: A very short introduction around the concept of abstract thought. A mathematical model abstracts the important features from a physical situation, such as…
