The birth of structuralism

Of all the sciences and pseudo-sciences that clamour for our attention, none is a tougher sell than pure mathematics. The British have never been noticeably keen on abstraction, but there’s something about algebra, analysis and, indeed, topological vector spaces that sends even the calmest and cleverest of us reaching for the gin. I think this is because each of us, bar the truly gifted, reaches a point with maths when we simply don’t get it. It may be the seven times table, it may be differential equations or differential calculus, and for me it was classical mechanics in my first year at university, but there it goes — whoosh! — straight over your head. After that lie only incomprehension and frustration, or in my case a Third.

We should therefore salute brave souls like Amir D. Aczel who write popular maths books for a living. Aczel, who has a BA and an MSc from Berkeley and a PhD from the University of Oregon, has so far given us The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity and several other books with even longer titles.