A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age

A lifelong math-phobe takes on one hell of a homework assignment in this rollicking meditation on numbers. Journalist Wilkinson (The Ice Balloon) recaps his effort, in his 60s, to relearn on his own (except for occasional tutoring from his long-suffering mathematician niece) the math subjects that he failed in high school. Much of the book riffs on his perennial bewilderment (Why are story problems confusing? Why do they put “dx” in calculus integrals? Why are arithmetic problems arranged vertically but algebra equations horizontally?) along with his arduous overthinking and muzzy suspicion of being deceived. Wilkinson also takes study breaks to do piquant reportage on an otherworldly math genius, and a poker champion who found an actual use for math in reckoning odds. Meanwhile, he floats lyrical disquisitions on the metaphysics of math, its hard reality despite a lack of physicality, and the seemingly divine infinitude of numbers. Wilkinson’s slyly entertaining prose captures both the frustrations of learning math—“I turned to Calculus Made Simple, by H. Mulholland, and only became more deeply lost and also indignant at the title”—and the rare exhilarations (“one feels engaged with larger powers”) when it’s mastered. Readers who have stared blankly at a sheet of equations will find this odyssey a treasure. (July)