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normally tucked away at the back of your local bookshop so that unsuspecting fiction hunters don’t accidentally come across it and let out an involuntary yelp.
It is true, mathematics books really can be popular. Simon Singh’s bestselling book Fermat’s Last Theorem is unashamedly about maths and mathematicians, and yet it’s on the way to selling its first million copies. It managed to bridge the gap by adding that essential ingredient: human interest. Fermat’s Last Theorem tells a story about a man with a passion, who fought against the odds and ended up with success – in this case, the solution to a question that had been taxing the greatest minds for hundreds of years. We all love stories like that, and it really doesn’t matter if the passion is for maths, mountaineering or missionary work, we’ll read it.
Tales of extraordinary people with extraordinary lifestyles are also irresistible. That’s why the book called "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers" did so well. In it, Paul Hoffman describes the life and work of the mathematician Paul Erdos, a genius who was homeless and hopeless, except when it came to maths. It’s fascinating to try to get into the mind of an eccentric like that.
Some highly successful maths books wear their hearts on their sleeves, and entice readers with a tone of “I love it,  so you will love it too". For example, there is ... |
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How To Make A 'Popular' Maths Book Popular
I’ve got an idea for a fascinating book. First I’ll include the method for solving quadratic equations of the form a-squared plus bx plus c. Then I can talk about the logarithmic formula for estimating how many prime numbers there are, before going on to give a great demonstration of Bayes' theorem about the probability of X given condition Y. It’s all gripping stuff.
That leaves just one thing. How can I persuade you to BUY this book?
Unfortunately, this is one of the problems with mathematics. For anyone who already loves the subject, not only did everything I’ve just described make sense, it probably sounded like fun, too. But most people don’t react that way. You are not alone if you felt a shiver down your spine as you recalled some dreadful moments from school, like the time Mr Smethwick asked you to state the square root of minus 16, and you asked yourself: “Who cares?”.
So how does an author persuade the maths-phobic to read about maths? The first thing she or (almost always) he does is to try to write a popular maths book. I’m not joking, there really is a category of books called Popular Mathematics. It may sound like a contradiction in terms, but you’ll find this section among the shelves with what may seem like an equally unlikely name, Popular Science. This section is |
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