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maxmagee's review against another edition
I just don't have the math background for this.
peebee's review against another edition
1.0
I don't know why, maybe it's his three word name and the fact everyone seemed broken up when he died, but I figured he was some eminent figure of literature. I didn't realize he was some snarky NPR dick in the McSweeny's mold. This guy is WAY out of his league in writing a book on high level math, and from the ugly mess of footnotes, cutesy abbreviations that waste more time in the looking up than they save in the reading the non sequitur jokey jokes about people's names and how hard math is, and disjointed style of cramming math exposition into random sections, he maybe shouldn't write books period. This is the first book I've put up I haven't finished, but I am done with it, completely.
cinchona's review against another edition
5.0
Enthusiastic to the point of being frantic. Idiosyncratic to the point of being entirely disorganized. Marked by D.F.W.'s strange style, which manages to be both personable and byzantine. I can see a million places where a reader would be put off by this book--those with limited math background will choke on the proofs and casual use of difficult mathematical ideas, those with lots will be dissatisfied by his oddly-paced and sometimes confused presentation.
But this book is a gem. If you've got a good but rusty math background, dive in.
It perfectly recreated for me a beautiful feeling: that of a mathy friend trying earnestly to explain something cool they *just* learned. The frantic disorganization and enthusiastic jumble of thoughts rings true. And it inspires in me the same feelings of interest and excitement to learn. This won't be the last book I read on these subjects, and I feel like D.F.W.'s extensive bibliography is proof that he didn't intend it to be anyone's.
Further, this book has turned me around in my feelings about the author. In 2012, I read Consider the Lobster, and wrote this in my review: "I guess the problem is, DFW thinks I want to read about what DFW thinks about X (X being the AVN awards, lobsters, or grammar) when I really just want to read an interesting, spirited account of X." I take it back. Now I'm a lot more interested in D.F.W.'s weird math-loving brain.
But this book is a gem. If you've got a good but rusty math background, dive in.
It perfectly recreated for me a beautiful feeling: that of a mathy friend trying earnestly to explain something cool they *just* learned. The frantic disorganization and enthusiastic jumble of thoughts rings true. And it inspires in me the same feelings of interest and excitement to learn. This won't be the last book I read on these subjects, and I feel like D.F.W.'s extensive bibliography is proof that he didn't intend it to be anyone's.
Further, this book has turned me around in my feelings about the author. In 2012, I read Consider the Lobster, and wrote this in my review: "I guess the problem is, DFW thinks I want to read about what DFW thinks about X (X being the AVN awards, lobsters, or grammar) when I really just want to read an interesting, spirited account of X." I take it back. Now I'm a lot more interested in D.F.W.'s weird math-loving brain.
joey_erg's review against another edition
2.0
Lower rating mostly because I'm not smart enough to get most of what is covered in this book.
meadowcare4all's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
aleffert's review against another edition
3.0
This book has a serious Law of the Excluded Middle problem. Not just technically - he cites LEM (these things always end up abbreviated in typical DFW style) in totally unnecessary cases - but in that the book is neither A nor not A. David Foster Wallace thinks that the development of the mathematical understanding of infinity is deeply interesting and this book is him telling you about it. He's right. It is deeply interesting. The problem is how he decides to tell you about it. And in some ways he is stuck with the usual dilemma of pop science books: the intersection to technical detail, mathematical accessibility, and technical accessibility. He pursues this as a largely mathematical development, running through many of the relevant core developments from Pythagoras to Gödel. Deliberately skipping some interesting side stories about the personalities involved. This is fine, there are plenty of biographies of the mathematicians involved, though I'm sure their not usually told with DFW's gift for gusto. The problem is that he runs through the math, skimming the details, missing some rigor, and even getting stuff wrong, but without adding in much of the bravura writing on which his deserved reputation stands. I suspect that much of the book would have been incomprehensible to someone without a solid math background, at which point there is very little new here though he does put things in a nice progression.
poopdealer's review against another edition
4.0
idk anything about math so i cant be 100% but im pretty sure this isnt right lol