It seems to me that the world is set up in such a way as to give men an unfair advantage. (Lucky me.) And not just because they are men — more because the world is set up so that certain kinds of behaviour are favoured, and those behaviours are more common in men than in women. There are behaviours that are thought of as typically masculine or feminine, but talking about them in those terms just reinforces the stereotypes that we should try to abolish. As soon as we say “men are like this”, someone else will reasonably say “not all men!” and we end up with an argument instead of progress.
Continue readingArticles about Eugenia Cheng
X + Y — Eugenia Cheng
The Art of Logic — Eugenia Cheng
Like you, I try to think carefully and express my points of view clearly, with meticulous steps of reasoning combining seamlessly to form watertight, irrefutable arguments. And yet people still argue with me and fail to be convinced. How can this be so? This book explains how logic works in theory, how it fails in the real world, and how to fix it.
Continue readingHow to Bake π — Eugenia Cheng
The whole idea of mathematics is to make things easier. It allows us to understand the world is ways that would be impossible without it. So it’s a great shame that many people see it as shrouded in mystery. Eugenia Cheng tries to overcome this problem in this book about mathematics and cooking (and in some cases, the mathematics of cooking).
The intricate details of mathematics can be tricky to get straight, but the concepts should be intelligible if presented properly. In this book, Cheng works towards an understanding of Category Theory, her own specialist area of mathematics. (I think this is the “mathematics of mathematics” mentioned in the subtitle.) Each chapter starts with a simple recipe, which Cheng uses to illustrate a mathematical concept. This strategy works well: you really get a good idea of what the concept is and why it’s useful, without getting hung up on complexities.