Shape cover art

Shape

The Hidden Geometry of Absolutely Everything

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Shape

By: Jordan Ellenberg
Narrated by: Jordan Ellenberg
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

How should a democracy choose its representatives? How does disease spread? How do computers teach themselves chess and why is chess easier for them than analysing a sentence? What should your kids study in school if they really want to learn to think? All of these are questions about geometry.

Jordan Ellenberg reveals the mathematics behind some of the most important scientific, political and philosophical conundrums we face. The word 'geometry', from the Greek, means 'measuring the world'. If anything, geometry doesn't just measure the world - it explains it. Shape shows us how.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Jordan Ellenberg (P)2021 Penguin Audio Mathematics Physics Science Chess

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All stars
Most relevant  
Not just 1 diagram, but 150+
Otherwise some points of interest definitely, but mixed in with meandering stories. Probably would have been better much shorter.

Audio book with references to diagrams??

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I returned this after two hours so my experience might not be representative of the whole but:

1) I don't think this works in an audio format. The reason I'd listen to an audio book is to give my brain something to do while my hands and eyes do something else. However, this books expects you to look at diagrams constantly - which requires my hands and eyes... It doesn't help that Audible's PDF viewing experience isn't great either (doesn't remember your place, no ability to scroll, etc)

2) The author seems preoccupied with historic context of the people who worked on a problem - rather than the historic context of the problem itself. I don't really care what was the name of the person who introduced Topology to the world and what circumstances they lived in - I care why it is interesting and what problems it helps to solve. The latter has not featured at all so far (even after an intriguing problem posed to the listener has apparently been "solved").

Doesn't work in audio

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