An Imaginary Tale: The Story of √-1 (Princeton Science Library) (original 1998; edition 2016)

Very technical for a popular book, though admittedly most of my reference points are pop science rather than pop maths. (It's certainly no [b:The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe|10638|The Road to Reality A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe|Roger Penrose|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386924912s/10638.jpg|1077395], but it's far more mathematical than any other pop science book I can think of, and it's much more demanding than, say, Ellenberg's excellent [b:How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking|18693884|How Not to Be Wrong The Power of Mathematical Thinking|Jordan Ellenberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387726285s/18693884.jpg|26542434], which is the only pop maths book I can think of off the top of my head.) In any case, I found it heavy going, and had to accept that a fair portion would go over my head unless I was willing to spend a huge amount of time and effort. So I'm not in a position to judge whether it would be enjoyable for readers with the background & intelligence to follow it closely (though I suspect that it would be).

For me it was worthwhile in parts & frustrating in others. Mostly that's simply the result of my own ignorance/laziness/stupidity, but I did sometimes feel that Nahin wasn't quite sure who he was writing for: he would occasionally pause to explain a very basic concept, then in the next breath launch into a torrent of formal mathematics with little in the way of verbal guidance. (Mostly, though, he was clearly aiming at people with a fairly solid mathematical background.) There were some sections that I could have grasped a lot more quickly & easily with just slightly more hand-holding; sometimes a logical leap that would be obvious to a mathematician took me an embarassingly long time to understand. I assume something similar is true of some of the proofs I gave up on following, though others were genuinely too hard for me, and by the final chapter I was doing a lot of skim-reading.

Anyway, I suspect I might have loved this book had I been a bit smarter or better educated. In reality, it was probably worth reading, but only just. ( )

On occasion, I find myself in the math/science section of the bookstore. Having a very thorough background in mathematics, I find it interesting to read books written by notable professionals in their fields on certain subjects. This one caught my eye (pun unintended), and I just had to get it!

The book chronicles the history and usage of the imaginary number, i (or j, if you're an electrical engineer), or √-1.

For those of you who have taken a few math classes, you'll realize that i cannot possibly exist in the realm of Real numbers, as with respect to that set of numbers, it simply does not make any sense! Thus, Numbers are broken down into two sets: Real and Imaginary. And when a number contains both of these values, it is considered Complex, or a+bi. Complex numbers work very well as Cartesian coordinates.

But enough about math! Let's discuss Nahin's book. While not having the target audience of The Da Vinci Code in mind, Nahin paints a picture of a 2,000 year old known history of complex numbers, complete with the masterminds who tried to solve problems involving it.

So, if you've ever wondered why we make such a big deal about imaginary number, or how they came to be used in all the different technologies in which they're used, you might find this book interesting. If you think math is boring, but you have an acute case of insomnia, you may also enjoy this book, but for different reasons. The only instance in which I would recommend you avoid this book is if you hate mat and have no intentions of improving your intellect or knowledge of mathematical subjects. ( )