Freeman Dyson wrote a FOREWARD for a translation of Piergiorgio Odifreddi's "The Mathematical Century." Originally written in Italian in 1950, the book looks at major Mathematical developments in the last 100 years, thus goin back into the halfway through the great 19th century adjustments of Mathematical Universe. Definitely NOT written for an expert, the book is a mind-blowing example of how great mathematicians communicate with laymen in everyday language.
I was ogling the names I am familiar with - Gödel, Milnor, Fermat, Wiles, Riemann, Poincare - and then fumbled with the new names and half-familiar spellings.
No doubt, this book brings a manageable feast on my illiterate table . A great read for anyone who love stories of numbers. While reading a para, just realized that many floor tiles designed through 40s, 50s, and 60s in Dhaka, Chittagong, and other small towns in Bangladesh. These are actually a reworking of 'Penrose tiling' as quasi-crystal patterns. I personally believe that Penrose's height was reached, not with his Nobel price, but with this quasi-crystal patterns being accepted as part of mass-culture that infiltrated into lands as distant as Bengal mufassil.
