Reddit reviews The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems
We found 3 Reddit comments about The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
W W Norton Company
I recommend the following book for getting a good overview of modern mathematics: The Princeton Companion to Mathematics although it is a bit pricey (though less expensive than the average textbook). It is extremely well written, even if it doesn't necessarily hit all the details. It focuses more on an intuitive understanding of many modern mathematical concepts so that more formal and detailed treatments. The authors wrote the book to help math students get up to speed about various different fields of math as well as help working mathematicians better communicate across different disciplines.
Martin Gardeners books are good too. I specifically like The Colossal Book of Mathematics and The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems. His books tend to be very problem oriented rather than theory building, whereas the Princeton Companion is more expository. While Gardeners Colossal books are quite a bit shorter than the companion, I read them more slowly since I often stop to work on the problems he presents.
I think it helps to realize that there isn't any particular order to learning different kinds of math. High School and elementary schools set math up like there's a clear hierarchy to all the material, but that's not necessarily the case. For example, you don't need Calculus to do basic Graph Theory or elementary Set Theory.
There are lists of textbook recommendations on /r/math but these are the books I would recommend without knowing much about your current skills or interests.
Buy
and
and read em both and love em to death and thank me later.
Martin Gardener's books could provide some nice entrypoints. Here's one of them: http://www.amazon.com/Colossal-Book-Short-Puzzles-Problems/dp/0393061140/