Book

Finished "Meta Maths: The Quest for Omega" by Gregory Chaitin, which I really enjoyed. It's a popularization of some recent higher math that he's been working on, that may or may not be really significant (if I fully understood it, I could tell you which). But it was at just above my ability, which makes for good reading, because it stretched my mind a good bit. It's written in a very casual style -- lots of words in bold, lots of exclamation points, lots of references to the physical act of love (seriously) -- which could be annoying to a more critical reader, but in the end I liked that it was written that way; the subject matter is dense enough that the casual style kept it grounded. On the down side, sometimes it would casually mention a concept in a proof with no antecedent or explanation, a fault I lay on the editor. I guess I'm most appreciative that he's trying to write a good popularization of some higher math, which is too rare these days. And I liked that he talked a lot about the philosophy behind math, which is very interesting to me. I'll read it again some day, and hopefully get farther.