Book Review: Think Of A Number by Malcolm E Lines

Book Review

This is a review on a Maths book I recently read. The Maths involved isn't too difficult and so anyone with a basic understanding of algebra should be able to read the book. The introduction also gives brief lessons in some of the Maths you may need. 

The book has 16 chapters which cover 15 different topics.

The Fibonacci Sequence

Hailstone Numbers

Statistics

Pluperfect Squares

Euclid's 5th postulate

Modular Arithmetic

Cryptography

Prime Numbers and Security

How many colours are needed to colour a map

Goloumb rulers and ominoes

The NP Problem

How many balls can be shaken into a can

Fractals

Iteration

Symmetry

Length - Quite short

The book is only 160 pages so didn't take long to read and since each chapter is about 10 pages, it's easy to quickly read a chapter, do something else, and then come back to read another one.

Does it give good explanations?
Is it interesting?
Is it easy to understand?


For me a Science or Maths book should be able to explain hard concepts well and do it so it's interesting.
I enjoyed the chapters on The Fibonacci Sequence, statistics, Euclid's 5th postulate, modular arithmetic, cryptography and security the most. I found them very interesting because of the topics and the way they were explained. One slight issue I had with the security chapter is that the book was written in 1990 and so some of the information regarding the latest computers will probably be outdated. Apart from that I think these chapters were fantastic and have encouraged me to learn more about these topics.

The other chapters...
To put it simply, I didn't find them interesting. Maybe if you find the topics in chapters interesting, you'll enjoy the chapters but for me, it was really a race to finish them and get to the more interesting ones.

Summary

Not bad. Not Great. If the topics sound like they would interest you (you can google them to get an idea if you're not sure) then go for it but if not I wouldn't say you're missing out on much by not reading this book. If I could go back a week the advice I would give myself is just read Chapters 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 (and maybe 12, 14 and 15).
For those who already know a good amount about the topics then maybe the book isn't worth reading because there's only so much 10 pages can explain on a topic.