Symmetry

Yesterday at the Simon institute there was a fun talk about The edge of physics by its author, Anil Ananthaswamy. To divulgate the theory of computation isn’t as easy, since you can’t talk about mega experiments done at the South Pole or massive telescopes built on top of mountains.  (It would also be a lot easier if we could resolve P vs. NP.)  For some inspiration we can look at books related to mathematics.  Here I would like to recommend Symmetry, by Marcus du Sautoy.  I enjoyed very much reading and re-reading this book, much more than his previous book The music of the primes, which I don’t really recommend.  Symmetry is a gripping history of group theory.  The purpose isn’t so much explaining the math as making you excited about the historical developments of the theory and the people that worked and are working on it.