Reading & connections
One LinkedIn post. Several more math books.
A Jacobian made me stop scrolling. Delone has me working through constructions. And a Soviet math handbook is on its way in the mail. Apparently, I’m building a library.
Bee Rosa Davis / A personal notebook
Bee’s notebook.
Books, detours, and things I can’t stop thinking about.
What I’m reading, what catches my eye, and the questions that follow me back to my work. Sometimes a LinkedIn post. Sometimes a very old geometry problem. Sometimes another book I apparently need.
On my desk / On the way / On the list
The growing bookshelf.
This is a reading list, not a list of books I’ve finished. I’ll change the labels and add notes as I go. These are the ones I’m excited about right now.
Delone & Zhitomirsky’s geometry problems
Russian geometry
My current rabbit hole. A short construction problem turns into an entire afternoon of asking why it works. I’m writing my way through these in Zadachnik.
Follow the worked problems →Handbook of Higher Mathematics
Soviet reference · Russian · 1972 edition
Yes, I am excited about a math handbook arriving in the mail. There is something wonderful about having a whole landscape of mathematics sitting on your desk, ready to be opened anywhere.
Read the later 1977 edition · Russian PDF →Sacred Mathematics: Japanese Temple Geometry
Japan · Sangaku · English
Geometry problems on wooden tablets in temples and shrines? I love this already. I want to see how those beautiful circles and tangencies become arguments.
Book details & preview →The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art: Companion and Commentary
China · 九章算術 · English edition, 1999
I want to spend time with another tradition of asking what a calculation means. Measurement, surveying, and the reasoning behind the procedure: very much my kind of questions.
English edition →Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning
Soviet mathematics · English translation
The big-picture book. I want to move between geometry, analysis, topology, and computation without treating them as separate planets.
Edition details · Volume 1 →Geometry and the Imagination
German geometric tradition · English translation
The title alone got me. I’m especially interested in illustrations that help you understand why something is true. That is what I want the drawings in Zadachnik to do.
Read the authors’ preface →Visual Complex Analysis
Complex analysis · English
This is on the list for the harmonic and holomorphic questions I keep coming back to. I want to see the transformations, then work through the conditions carefully.
Book details →Visual Differential Geometry and Forms
Differential geometry · English
Curvature, manifolds, and a visual route into the mathematics. This feels like a book I’ll want open beside my own notes, with plenty of paper nearby.
Author’s book site →Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam
Medieval Islamic mathematics · Modern study in English
I’m curious about the constructions and spherical geometry: what changes when the surface you are measuring on changes? I want the actual problems as well as the history.
Second edition →Lectures on Differential Geometry
Modern differential geometry · English
The slow-study shelf. I want to spend more time with Chern’s geometry and deepen the mathematics behind the manifold questions I’m working on.
Find an edition →