Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities

Book Review: "Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities"

A book that stimulated my mind and made me solve and answer interesting and challenging mathematical questions. This book is “Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities” by Ian Stewart who also wrote the book “The Mathematics of Life”. This book is a compilation of the mathematical problems the author found interesting when he was young that was not taught in class.

Every problem starts from the curious mind of a person. Just like the story of the Pandora’s Box. If Pandora just followed the rules and did not open the box due to curiosity, there would not have been a problem. However, the curiosity of a person does not only bring problems but also solution to problems. As said, this book is a compilation of the mathematical problems the author found interesting. All of the problems found in this book were not taught in class and was just discovered by the author. Due to the curious mind of the author, he found problems and also solutions to his problems. The problems shown in the book were all interesting and can exercise your mind. You would not believe that a 14 year old would do such thing. However, the author is just different from the others, I guess. The problems in the beginning were still easy and understandable. But, after some time, the problems became challenging that make you think again. This is the beauty of the book because it is not the regular mathematics book that tackles about plain algebra, geometry, and trigonometry where you can sometimes just mentally answer the questions in a minute or two. This mathematics book is more on the application of the said topics. It has puzzles, problems and even jokes.  

This book is recommended to everyone that wants to learn more about math that is not taught in the class and avoid the typical straight to the point math books. If you just want to play with numbers then this book is for you. I think playing with numbers and discovering new stuff about mathematics is what makes it interesting and fun. I have done this when I was young but failed due to reasons. However, this book is a proof of how fun mathematics can be.