Recently, I stumbled upon a Guardian article by mathematician and BBC presenter Marcus du Sautoy. I’d missed it when it was originally published in January as I was travelling then. If you are not familiar with Marcus’ work you can access his podcast “A Brief History of Mathematics” (10 episodes) and watch clips of his BBC Four programme “The Story of Maths” (currently not available on iplayer).

Sautoy’s  works remind me of another mathematician Ian Stewart of the ilk who write for the general audience. Stewart’s book entitled “Why Beauty Is Truth: The History of Symmetry” is a real delight to read. I also realised how little I originally understood mathematics when I first read Stewart’s “The Problems of Mathematics”.

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