Unknown Quantity: I didn't make it. I didn't make it through. Unknown Quantity is a pop math history of algebra, by John Derbyshire who previously authored Prime Obsession, which was the story of the search for a solution to the Reimann Hypothesis with sidelights on the nature of prime numbers. I liked Prime and was able to follow it pretty well. Unknown Quantity lost me.
Some folks cannot understand the first level of abstraction where x and y variables are used to solve simple equations. Others can go further. Some mental mutants even find new levels of abstraction. It is, I suspect, built into our wiring. Algebra is, simply put, abstraction in its purest form. In the discipline of Algebra, new fields open up when someone comes along and finds a new level of abstraction. From simple x and y unknowns, to classes of numbers and equations represented by other symbols and operators, to classes of classes given yet newer gadgety symbols, to classes of classes of classes... Derbyshire does his best to explain this, and if you are an equation tinkerer or you spend your spare time doing IQ tests you might get a kick out of the samples and examples. But I got to the point where I would cringe when he would casually toss out a "You can easily calculate from table 12.1..." or an "As is obvious from figure 16.3..." My days of trying to understand higher math are long past. I will have to go to my grave unable to find the root of a matrix, or whatever is going on.
More importantly, I found the historical sketches a bit less compelling this time around. Frankly, the personalities involved in the history of Algebra are less interesting than the ones from Prime. So, no, I didn't make it to the end. Approach this book with caution. You'll need paper, pencil and maybe an HP-15C calculator.
