Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut in Math and Life

Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut in Math and Life by Marcus Du Sautoy

Math relies on building blocks and shortcuts to help quickly get to conclusions. Multiplication is a fast way of doing repeated addition. Exponents are just repeated multiplication and good by done by repeating additional over and over. However, shortcuts enable doing these in simpler fashion. More advanced math like calculus are essentially just shortcuts to solve certain types of problems. There are many shortcuts that can be found in math. Spotting patterns and shortcuts can help quickly resolve problems. Likewise, in life there are many shortcuts that can be found to quickly come to an accurate conclusion. However, like math, there are also some things that require doing things the "hard way", like practicing an instrument.

The Children of Athena: Greek Writers and Thinkers in the Age of Rome, 150 BC-AD 400

The Children of Athena: Greek Writers and Thinkers in the Age of Rome, 150 BC-AD 400 by Charles Freeman

Greek thought was popular in the Roman empire. Stoic thought was heavily influenced by the Greeks. The Romans had respect for the Greek thought and used it as the basis for their philosophies. This book explores the various philosophers at the time. Eventually Christianity came to supplant the Greco-Roman religion, but only after adopting some of the thoughts for themselves.