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Is Maths Real? review: Getting comfortable not knowing the answers

Eugenia Cheng's latest book about mathematics asks deceptively simple questions that hint at the deep mysteries beneath

By Anil Ananthaswamy

28 June 2023

BAM2G8 Boy with formulae on blackboard

Not understanding a mathematical problem is the first step to solving it

Image Source/Alamy

Is Maths Real?
Eugenia Cheng (Profile Books)

SOME have likened the process of doing abstract mathematics to hacking your way out of some dense forest. Maryam Mirzakhani, the late mathematician and the first of only two women to win a Fields medal, once talked about feeling “lost in a jungle” and of gaining mathematical insights while trying out new tricks to extricate herself.

In mathematician Eugenia Cheng’s new book, Is Maths Real? How simple questions lead us to mathematics’…

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