“The world of math is more weird and wonderful than some people want to tell you,” writes Cheng, a mathematician at the University of Sheffield in England. Invoking plenty of examples from cooking and baking, as well as other everyday-life situations such as calculating a taxi fare, searching for love through online dating services and training for a marathon, she explains abstract mathematical ideas—including topology and logic—in understandable ways. Cheng's specialty is category theory, which she describes as “the mathematics of mathematics”—a way to organize and understand the many rules and processes that govern math. Her lively, accessible book demonstrates how important and intriguing such a pursuit can be.
This article was originally published with the title "How to Bake π: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics" in Scientific American 312, 6, 78 (June 2015)
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0615-78b
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Clara Moskowitzis Scientific American's senior editor covering space and physics. She has a bachelor's degree in astronomy and physics from Wesleyan University and a graduate degree in science journalism from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Follow Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz Credit: Nick Higgins
