Reading for mathematical enrichment

Reading for mathematical enrichment, for instance in the summer before you apply to University; indicate in your UCAS form some mathematics you have enjoyed reading and why.

Browse some of these books to find which parts to read, and think about, carefully.

1. Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction by Timothy Gowers (Oxford Paperbacks, 2002).
2. Concepts of Modern Mathematics by Ian Stewart (Penguin 1975). Ian has written several other suitable books such as From Here to Infinity (Oxford Paperbacks, 1996), Nature's Numbers (Phoenix 1998), and Does God play Dice? (Penguin 1997).
3. What is Mathematics? by Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, USA 1996)
4. The Music of the Primes: Why an Unsolved Problem in Mathematics Matters by Marcus du Sautoy (HarperPerennial, 2004).
   

The next two books are more expensive (so try your library first):

1. Indra's Pearls: The Vision of Felix Klein, by David Mumford, Caroline Series, David Wright (Cambridge University Press, 2002); has beautiful pictures, starts with Complex Numbers.
2. The Pleasures of Counting by T. W. Korner (Cambridge University Press 1996); showing the kinds of problems that interest mathematicians.

Other suitable books:

1. The Book of Numbers by John H. Conway and Richard K. Guy (Springer-Verlag 1998).
2. Calculus Gems by G. F. Simmons (McGraw Hill). This book contains nuggets of beautiful mathematics placed in an interesting historical context. Topics of varying levels of difficulty cover various aspects of calculus.
3. The Mathematical Experience by P.J. Davis and R. Hersch (Birkhauser 1997).
4. The Shape of Space by Jeffrey R. Weeks (Dekker 2001). An entertaining introduction to topology and non-Euclidean geometry.