Freeman Dyson: By the BookNew York Times
April 16, 2015
Physicists and mathematician Freeman Dyson discusses his favorite books. Below is an excerpt where he talks about math and science books, but in the article he also mentions works of history, religion, and fiction. Other NYT "By the Book" columns are at
http://www.nytimes.com/column/by-the-book . Dyson has written several books for a popular audience himself.
Whom do you consider the best contemporary writers on science and mathematics?
On science, my favorite is Edward Wilson. In “The Ants” (with Bert Hölldobler) and “On Human Nature,” he describes ants and humans with equal insight. On mathematics, my favorite is Robert Kanigel, who wrote “The Man Who Knew Infinity,” a biography of the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan. It is impossible to write a readable book about real mathematics for nonmathematical readers. The best anybody can do is to write about a real mathematician.
What are the best books about mathematics for the lay reader? The best books about physics?
The best books that I know about mathematics and physics are almost a hundred years old: “Men of Mathematics,” by Eric Bell, published in 1937, and “Space, Time and Gravitation,” by Arthur Eddington, published in 1920. Bell’s book seduced a large number of kids of my generation, including me, into becoming mathematicians. Eddington’s book was the main reason why Einstein was better understood and admired by the general public in Britain and America than he was in Germany. No comparably clear account of Einstein’s ideas existed in German.
