One of the earliest papers assigned to me for an introductory philosophy class was to take a subject and look at the early philosophical contributors to the field. Many of the students in my class took topics like art or literature — but because I had been a fairly average maths student during my high school years, I decided to challenge myself by looking at the early contributors to mathematics.

It wasn’t my highest grade in the subject, but I discovered that it wasn’t a fear or a dislike of mathematics that led me to find it boring — it was that there didn’t seem to be an atmosphere of encouraging us to enjoy the topic in school nor any sense of the historical figures and elements and exactly why they were important.

Therefore for my short series of book suggestions for the next few days are some of the books authored by the Cosmic Shambles LIVE authors, starting with Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension, by Matt Parker.

This is both a complex and engaging book — complex because it covers a lot of ground in both the history of mathematical puzzles and engaging because of the style of writing. With the occasional goofy photo, this has geometrical puzzles, card tricks, how-to-mathematically-date-and-find-a-partner and even some very clever experiments conducted and documented. As the author says, ‘recreational mathematics’ can both be a lot of fun and also demonstrate that there’s a lot more to learn.

I’m hoping that my nephew doesn’t listen or read this blog, since he’s a big fan of maths and science and I’m going to be giving him this book for his birthday at the end of the month. I don’t know if he’s having a different schooling experience to me, which has led him to enjoy maths, but if this can help him enjoy it further or he can pass it onto other kids, then it’ll be a good start. I do wish that I was able to find the hidden picture of Dr Lucie Green somewhere amongst the pages before I wrapped it up and sent it off.