3 C's; Cannot be Contained in a Cabinet

There are three kinds of knowledge. One is what we obtain from school, second is what we get from other people and lastly the knowledge that we ourselves unknowingly learn. Stuart was one of the peculiar guys whom I admire. And Oh, by the way I meant awesome peculiarity.

I myself have been filled with curiosities and good thing that the world can satisfy it. I like the line from Ian’s book “The math you didn't do at school is interesting”. Indeed learning without pressure on taking tests is the ultimate way to genuinely gain knowledge. Every time a gap in me brought by curiosity is filled, I feel that I’m walking on air. What I find in the author of the book similar to me is being able to see things at a different perspective and not limiting my education to what is known. The book gave me an insight to what math is outside of the box and not the creepy subject to be feared about. Math is about putting things into places in their perfect fit just like managing things inside a cabinet.

The first chapter was my favorite since it was about aliens and I am forever interested in extraterrestrial life. His hypothetical story about two men encountering aliens was impressively nerdy and I liked it. The question represents logic that is applied by twisting truth and false. I enjoyed finding whether Alfy, Betty and Gemma were Gibberish or Veracitor which are groups of the same species determined by how they tell statements based on truth. I will admit I really got puzzled.

Puzzles and games are a part of everyone’s life. His examples are entertaining and not to mention he had incorporated math together with humor. There were so many interactive games concerning patterns and puzzles that are challenging. I think school math should be more interactive, innovative showing the creativity that can be found in math. Games include probability, geometry (my favorite) and logic. For example a pop up dodecahedron, one is  how to extract a cherry from a cocktail glass which is hard as drinkers say and the true reason why you can't divide anything by zero. There were even some tips to make money just by proving the obvious; yeah I know it was hilarious. As a biology student this book presented math as something to look forward to everyday, even in our metabolism math is used.

Mathematics uses logic and philosophy as well, that’s why without a doubt it contains a lot of uncertainties. These uncertainties are also brought by curiosities where the latter brings knowledge that we use in our everyday lives. What I admired in Ian Stuart was that he shared his collection of ideas since he was 14 years old, as early as that and didn't just keep it on his own. This book was really made with passion and love by the author since it reflects his insights and journey in meeting mathematics.

In the end life is a cycle meaning it revolves in patterns. Equipped is our cabinet without any corners that will be filled by knowledge that is infinite ∞