A Mathematical Nature Walk

The book is filled with little examples of what we see and do during our day; then shows how to calculate the magnitudes of what is going on. Pick it up, look up your subject/interest, read and within 5 minutes see how math explains another event.

Excellent book.

Exactly as the title and description says. I got lost in the math, however, and put it down.

I am not a mathematician and therefore it was beyond me.

I have read a number of books of this general sort and I would classify this one, without hesitation, as one of the better ones. The book's format is a bit different. Each new section begins with a question, e.g., "How far away is that cloud?", "How are star magnitudes measured", etc. Then what follows may be an experience that the author has had during one of his nature walks, or simply a written description of the phenomenon. Then the mathematical analysis/modelling begins in an effort to arrive at a plausible (but not necessarily rigorous) answer to the original query. The book contains 85 such questions that are dealt with in this way and these are sorted into twelve chapters, each with a different theme, e.g., "In the Playground", "In the Sky", etc. Most of the topics are well explained and the mathematical details are generally easy to follow and/or to verify for oneself; however, in a few cases, some formulas are presented as if by magic with little or no explanation - possibly leaving the reader (certainly me) occasionally perplexed. Also, I found a few (but not that many) misprints which were likely due to imperfect editing. The text is well-illustrated with plenty of helpful diagrams (a few of which have some crucial information accidentally left out, leaving the reader to fill it in). The colour plates and black and white photographs were also useful.The author, a theoretical astrophysicist by training, is certainly well-qualified to write such a book. His writing style is friendly, generally clear and actually quite entertaining - even occasionally witty and humorous - rather unusual for books of this type. A review on the book's back cover calls the book "a true gem of popular scientific writing". I find this a bit misleading since the word "popular" will likely mean different things to different people. To put things into perspective, I would expect that those who love observing natural phenomena and have a good working knowledge of geometry, trigonometry and differential and integral calculus would likely appreciate this book the most.

I have found this book to be a good source of answers to some very common questions about nature, science, and the things we see every day. In the age of search few of these answers are out of reach, but this book is a nice compilation presented in easy to follow ways. I particularly think it a good review for people wanting to keep some of these answers fresh in case children's inquisitive minds happen to ask.

The book was very well written and very well put together. It was very organized and made you think.

I have begun studying maths as part of a science degree and I thought this would be a good book to add a little spice to the often dry theoretical work involved in introductory calculus.Although the book is good for what it is, it should be advertised for people who have at least mastered the fundamentals of calculus and probably beyond. I have had to hold off reading this book until my calculus is at an intermediate level, so while I don't feel cheated I would warn against buying this unless you're very 'fluent' in maths.

Brought as a present

Shows how mathematics helps in explaining Nature. Helps if you have at least High-School or Good GCE/GCSE Maths. Some questions are set that don't need mathematics but rely on good observation, logic, and some science.