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Fibonacci's Rabbits by Adam Hart-Davis

Tom V.'s Recommendation for the 510 Club | June 2024

 

Adam Hart-Davis is a broadcaster and writer who writes on a range of subjects, (including Thunder, Flush and Thomas Crapper, a history of the toilet) providing accessible broad brush coverage of topics. 

 

Fibonacci's Rabbits is a look at 50 advances in mathematics, from the 44,000 year old Ishango bone, through to the hunt for scutoids, a new shape, in 2018. Hart-Davis does not even try to cover the subjects in any great detail, but seems very much interested in the human aspect of the developments, from speculating on the possible motivations driving the early advances, to anecdotal stories about some of the more colourful mathematical characters in recent history.

 

To anyone with a higher mathematics education, there is likely not much new in here, but as a broad overview of the development of mathematics from the first tally stick to the present day, it was a pleasant light read.

 

Fibonacci's Rabbits does a good job of capturing the joy of maths and the passion that people throughout history have brought to the subject. I'd recommend it for light reading or as a good book to lend to someone who is enthusiastic about maths but knows little of how we got to this point.

 

 

WHAT IS THE 510 CLUB?

The 510 Club is named after the Dewey Decimal classification for Mathematics. It is a book recommendation project facilitated by Mathateca that is published in the monthly Christchurch MathsJam newsletter and on the Facebook page. Each month we feature a mathematical book recommendation, whether that’s a novel, articles / essays, a puzzle book, textbook, biography... just as long as it features maths in some way. Read the above book at your leisure then feel free to comment your thoughts below, or come along to the following Christchurch MathsJam sessions to join in an informal maths/book chat with the reviewer.

We're always looking for suggestions! If you're interested in contributing a book rec one month, please email christchurch@mathsjam.com to sign up.