Love Triangle Book Review
Terrific Triangles
Summary: Learn just how many ways triangles show up in our daily lives and just how important they are to civilization.
4
I used to be quite good at math… then I had a horrible teacher and my math ability seemed to be shattered. It seems this is not an unfamiliar experience for many according to Matt. But with Love Triangle perhaps we can find our way back to math, specifically via triangles in this case.
If you’ve seen any social media math communication, chances are you’ve come across Matt before… he’s certainly doing his bit to show people what there is to love about the field of mathematics. Before I get into things too much I’ll get two irritations I have out of the way.
The first one is the page numbering… there is no explanation at the start of the book (or at least I didn’t catch it) explaining the page numbers… it turns out they are based on the Sine function. That’s all well and good for a little math fun… but I like my page numbers to be clear and easy to read… I don’t want to have to grab a calculator to figure out where in the book I am supposed to be… nit picky… yes but it really does bug me not having clear page numbering in books.
The second is not strictly Matt’s fault… but it also kind of is. This one is arguably really nit picky but when you are referencing images in a book… it’s a good idea to check with the editor what the page layout is going to be because saying “the image below shows XYZ” only for there to not be an image there, can be a bit disorientating. Sure the image is generally not going to be too far away… but it is a bit irritating (perhaps that’s just me).
Love Triangle gets off to what I think is a good start, showing real world examples of how triangles can be used. For quite some time now I’ve felt that the best way to make any subject easier for someone to absorb is to show how it is applied in the real world. The case of the pig farmers and the balloonists is a great example of how triangles can be used to help solve problems for the average person. Matt’s own experience using triangles to measure the heights of buildings is another great way of showing how triangles can be used for practical purposes (it could be argued there are more “practical” things to do on a holiday than measure the height of a building… but if that’s what you want to do on your holiday then “you do you”.).
At times, however, some of the examples get a bit mired in either attempts at humour or just seem needlessly padded out with anecdotes. To be fair this is kind of like a math class… sometimes the material clicks and engages… sometimes it makes you just somewhat tune out. So some chapters/sections are likely to be more engaging than others.
There is plenty here to show just how useful triangles can be, how they do indeed show up a lot in our modern world (3D printing codes are a decent example). But there are also some examples that might be more an indication of Matt’s enthusiasm for triangles more than anything else. Apart from seemingly dismissing circles/spheres… when they do enter the conversation Matt seems content in building them out of triangles… I would contest this is not a true circle/sphere but I am again being pedantic.
Final Thoughts:
Anything that can reintroduce people to the value of math is good. There are certainly some great examples of how math and specifically triangles have been used to make sense of the world around us (including measuring astronomical distances). I think Matt’s presentation style might be a matter of personal preference… if it gels with you then you are likely to really enjoy digging into the power of triangles. If like me you feel it’s a bit hit or miss, there’s still a lot here to appreciate and some of the examples are quite fascinating. Worth a read if you want to learn more about the practical use of triangles.
About the Author
Chris O'Connor Father of four, husband of one and all round oddity. Gaming at home since about 1982 with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Moving on to the more traditional PC genre in the years that followed with the classic Jump Joe and Alley Cat. CGA, EGA, VGA and beyond PC's have been central to my gaming but I've also enjoyed consoles and hand helds along the way (who remembers the Atari Lynx?). Would have been actor/film maker, jack of many trades master of none.
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