Pommersheim, Marks and Flapan. The full subtitle of the book is “A Lively Introduction with Proofs, Applications, and Stories.” I have to admit I only browsed through a couple of pages of the book but it already lives up to that subtitle. In it you can find lots of math myths, corny jokes and cute illustrations. In the acknowledgements, the illustrations are credited to Jim Haynes, and I must say the caricatures (?) of the mathematicians are very well drawn.
As an example of a funny math myth in chapter 14. A Dr Ramanujan who is a therapist is attending to Dr Hearty and Dr Littleweird.
Ramanujan entered carrying one of his notebooks. “I can’t find anything wrong – all of your tests are orthonormal. Your issues must be complex. Have you considered analysis?”
Then the story goes on to describes how whenever Hearty wrote a fraction, Littleweird would have this compulsion to invert it into something improper, leading to an example of a continued fraction. Brilliant introduction to the chapter isn’t it?
A review on MAA online can be found here.
Pingback: An application of quadratic residues » eon