Love and Math is a book about mathematics written by

Edward Frenkel Edward Vladimirovich Frenkel (; born May 2, 1968) is a Russian-American mathematician working in representation theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics. He is a professor of mathematics at University of California, Berkeley, a member ...

which was published in October 2013. It was a ''New York Times'' bestseller, and was the 2015 winner of the

Euler Book Prize The Euler Book Prize is an award named after Swiss mathematician and physicist Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) and given annually at the Joint Mathematics Meetings by the Mathematical Association of America to an outstanding book in mathematics that is ...

. As of February 2016, it has been published in 16 languages.

Reception

In a review published in ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'', Jim Holt called ''Love and Math'' a "winsome new memoir" which is "three things: a Platonic love letter to mathematics; an attempt to give the layman some idea of its most magnificent drama-in-progress; and an autobiographical account, by turns inspiring and droll, of how the author himself came to be a leading player in that drama.” ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' review called the book "powerful, passionate and inspiring."

Keith Devlin Keith J. Devlin (born 16 March 1947) is a British mathematician and popular science writer. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States. He has dual British-American citizenship.

wrote in ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

'': "With every page, I found my mind's eye conjuring up a fictional image of the book's author, writing by candlelight in the depths of the Siberian winter like

Omar Sharif Omar Sharif ( ar, عمر الشريف ; born Michel Yusef Dimitri Chalhoub , 10 April 193210 July 2015) was an Egyptian actor, generally regarded as one of his country's greatest male film stars. He began his career in his native country in the ...

's Doctor Zhivago in the David Lean movie adaptation of Pasternak's famous novel. ''Love and Math'' is Edward Frenkel's ''Lara'' poems... As is true for all the great Russian novels, you will find in Frenkel's tale that one person's individual story of love and overcoming adversity provides both a penetrating lens on society and a revealing mirror into the human mind."

Peter Woit Peter Woit (; born September 11, 1957) is an American theoretical physicist. He is a senior lecturer in the Mathematics department at Columbia University. Woit, a critic of string theory, has published a book ''Not Even Wrong'' (2006) and writ ...

, author of ''Not Even Wrong'', wrote in a blog post:

The ''Love'' of the title is much more about love of mathematics than love of another person, as Frenkel provides a detailed story of what it is like to fall in love with mathematics, then pursue this deeply, ending up doing mathematics at the highest level.

References

{{Reflist Books about mathematics