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Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy
This “fun, brain-twisting book . . . will make you think” as it explores more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, philosophy, physics, and the social sciences (Sean Carroll, New York Times –bestselling author of Something Deeply Hidden ).
Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician’s purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn’t require tangibles, like rabbits or hats. Paradox works in the abstract, with words and concepts and symbols, to create the illusion of contradiction. There are no contradictions in reality, but there can appear to be. In Sleight of Mind , Matt Cook and a few collaborators dive deeply into more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, physics, philosophy, and the social sciences. As each paradox is discussed and resolved, Cook helps readers discover the meaning of knowledge and the proper formation of concepts—and how reason can dispel the illusion of contradiction.
The journey begins with “a most ingenious paradox” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance . Readers will then travel from Ancient Greece to cutting-edge laboratories, encounter infinity and its different sizes, and discover mathematical impossibilities inherent in elections. They will tackle conundrums in probability, induction, geometry, and game theory; perform “supertasks”; build apparent perpetual motion machines; meet twins living in different millennia; explore the strange quantum world—and much more.
Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician’s purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn’t require tangibles, like rabbits or hats. Paradox works in the abstract, with words and concepts and symbols, to create the illusion of contradiction. There are no contradictions in reality, but there can appear to be. In Sleight of Mind , Matt Cook and a few collaborators dive deeply into more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, physics, philosophy, and the social sciences. As each paradox is discussed and resolved, Cook helps readers discover the meaning of knowledge and the proper formation of concepts—and how reason can dispel the illusion of contradiction.
The journey begins with “a most ingenious paradox” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance . Readers will then travel from Ancient Greece to cutting-edge laboratories, encounter infinity and its different sizes, and discover mathematical impossibilities inherent in elections. They will tackle conundrums in probability, induction, geometry, and game theory; perform “supertasks”; build apparent perpetual motion machines; meet twins living in different millennia; explore the strange quantum world—and much more.
368 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2020
135 people are currently reading
440 people want to read
About the author
Matt Cook
7 books12 followersMATT COOK, Ph.D. is an economist, award-winning composer, Los Angeles Times bestselling author, and executive film producer based in LA. He tells stories through writing, music, magic, and numbers. As an economist, he has worked in entertainment finance and founded a government transparency organization. Drawing from experience in over 185 countries, he enjoys infusing his musical compositions with international intrigue. As a close-up magician trained at the Magic Castle, he has performed in Hollywood and often weaves sleight of hand into his talks and lectures. For his support of the military, he was personally honored by President George W. Bush with the Presidential Call to Service Award. Matt's thrillers include Sabotage (a Los Angeles Times bestseller) and Good Little Marauder (a historical thriller); his nonfiction includes Sleight of Mind (on paradoxes), The Startup Star, and more. Book Authority named Sleight of Mind among the “Top 10 Best Books on Philosophy of Physics of All Time." Matt was educated at Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania. Outside of his creative work, Matt is also a divemaster and pilot of land and sea planes. Learn more at www.visitmatt.com.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 25, 2020
This book is a collection of 75 phenomena, some of which are true paradoxes, others only appear as such at first glance. Actually a good idea. Unfortunately, the author only has very superficial knowledge. This leads to a lot of minor and major errors.
For example, the author writes: "The wavelength of infrared light is a bit bigger than that of red light, hence the term infrared." Infra is Latin for below or under. Infrared light has a lower energy (and frequency) than red light, hence the term infrared. This is just a minor mistake, but why explain the origin of the word at all when the explanation is wrong!
As a physicist with a strong mathematics background, I was particularly looking forward to the last chapter. Is mathematics discovered or invented? Unfortunately, this chapter is written in a very confusing way and does not provide any new insights. The guest contribution by Grant Sanderson (3blue1brown) was also rather disappointing.
For me, it was particularly disconcerting that Ayn Rand is referenced in this chapter. I know that in the Silicon Valley area many people are obsessed with Ayn Rand, just as they are obsessed with Elon Musk or Richard Feynman. But unlike Feynman, Rand was not a scientist. Nor was she a philosopher, but simply an author of a few bestsellers whom the rest of the world had never heard of.
For example, the author writes: "The wavelength of infrared light is a bit bigger than that of red light, hence the term infrared." Infra is Latin for below or under. Infrared light has a lower energy (and frequency) than red light, hence the term infrared. This is just a minor mistake, but why explain the origin of the word at all when the explanation is wrong!
As a physicist with a strong mathematics background, I was particularly looking forward to the last chapter. Is mathematics discovered or invented? Unfortunately, this chapter is written in a very confusing way and does not provide any new insights. The guest contribution by Grant Sanderson (3blue1brown) was also rather disappointing.
For me, it was particularly disconcerting that Ayn Rand is referenced in this chapter. I know that in the Silicon Valley area many people are obsessed with Ayn Rand, just as they are obsessed with Elon Musk or Richard Feynman. But unlike Feynman, Rand was not a scientist. Nor was she a philosopher, but simply an author of a few bestsellers whom the rest of the world had never heard of.
March 19, 2021
I heard about this book because the creator of 3brown1blue is a contributor and he mentioned it on his youtube channel (which, incidentally, if you haven't bingewatched that entire channel, I highly recommend doing so: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_...). Overall, I was reminded of why I love math so much and found this to be a highly engaging read.
March 31, 2021
Intellectually challenging
A well written book that addresses the concept of paradox and illustrates it well - I have read other books on the topic and found this work to be extensive, even managing to add a few paradoxes I had not read about. My only point about this book is that I think maths/logic and physics paradoxes are for different audiences. I personally bought the book to learn about maths and logic, and found the two long physics chapters very difficult to read.
A well written book that addresses the concept of paradox and illustrates it well - I have read other books on the topic and found this work to be extensive, even managing to add a few paradoxes I had not read about. My only point about this book is that I think maths/logic and physics paradoxes are for different audiences. I personally bought the book to learn about maths and logic, and found the two long physics chapters very difficult to read.
September 20, 2023
4.5 stars rounded up for its weirdness
Do you think paradoxes are to be steeped in? Koans to be meditated on as one’s mind merges with the universe? YOURE WRONG. PARADOXES are scholastic obfuscations of the weak minded that MUST BE OVERCOME with LOGIC! Any Rand can tell you that! A good alternate title would have been “All Paradoxes Must be Destroyed”.
Let’s start with that point because it’s a big source of the books weirdness. It’s clearly saturated with Rand’s very naive metaphysics. Questions have ANSWERS, concepts have REAL REFERENTS. But it gives the book such a Yankee, can-do, energy that propels you through as the puzzles get subtler and subtler. It also means that the book is very good at getting to the point (or at least, a point) where a worse book would hem and haw.
The paradoxes themselves? Of the 75, some are real treasures, especially the probability ones. The only chapter that I really thought was a bust was quantum mechanics — the discussion of bells experiment was the only one in the book I’d call “half hearted”.
Anyway, highly recommended if you like these kinds of things! A unique collection with a unique authorial voice.
Do you think paradoxes are to be steeped in? Koans to be meditated on as one’s mind merges with the universe? YOURE WRONG. PARADOXES are scholastic obfuscations of the weak minded that MUST BE OVERCOME with LOGIC! Any Rand can tell you that! A good alternate title would have been “All Paradoxes Must be Destroyed”.
Let’s start with that point because it’s a big source of the books weirdness. It’s clearly saturated with Rand’s very naive metaphysics. Questions have ANSWERS, concepts have REAL REFERENTS. But it gives the book such a Yankee, can-do, energy that propels you through as the puzzles get subtler and subtler. It also means that the book is very good at getting to the point (or at least, a point) where a worse book would hem and haw.
The paradoxes themselves? Of the 75, some are real treasures, especially the probability ones. The only chapter that I really thought was a bust was quantum mechanics — the discussion of bells experiment was the only one in the book I’d call “half hearted”.
Anyway, highly recommended if you like these kinds of things! A unique collection with a unique authorial voice.
February 4, 2021
DNF at 1/3. It does not deserve the shoutout from 3blue1brown channel, that video alone is more informative than all the pages I have gotten through.
Take, for example, the 1-to-2 sphere of the same size thing, it's the equivalent of mapping the 0-1 space to 0-2 space, therefore claiming the two section is equal in length. No it f**king isn't, people aren't goldfish. Or the Monty Hall - switch or not, your odd had improve due to some action but it remains 50:50 at the circumstance, hence comparing the 1/2 odd of the current choice against the 1/3 odd of the previous is an absurd idea - they are not actions that can be substitute against each other.
The author is so underqualified to write about this topic it is unfunny.
Take, for example, the 1-to-2 sphere of the same size thing, it's the equivalent of mapping the 0-1 space to 0-2 space, therefore claiming the two section is equal in length. No it f**king isn't, people aren't goldfish. Or the Monty Hall - switch or not, your odd had improve due to some action but it remains 50:50 at the circumstance, hence comparing the 1/2 odd of the current choice against the 1/3 odd of the previous is an absurd idea - they are not actions that can be substitute against each other.
The author is so underqualified to write about this topic it is unfunny.
May 28, 2020
Most of the time, using math is like killing a fly with a sledgehammer. Somewhat ponderous.
January 4, 2023
What a delightful book.
From why the Eiffel Tower was designed as it was to what explains the cohesiveness of sand castles, from the secrets of foam to the nature of spider webs, to mention just a few, the authors furnish simple and highly understandable explanations of the physics and mathematics underlying many objects and structures present in our daily lives. Each, short chapter contains pictures and a narrative, followed by an experiment (think about the elementary ones we did in the science magazines we read as youngsters).
The pictures are of such a high quality that the overall impression is closer to that of a fine art book (and helps explain the unexpected weight of the tome) than a science book.
On finishing the book, I am tempted to place it on a coffee table rather than on a shelf of our family library.
Bravo!!
From why the Eiffel Tower was designed as it was to what explains the cohesiveness of sand castles, from the secrets of foam to the nature of spider webs, to mention just a few, the authors furnish simple and highly understandable explanations of the physics and mathematics underlying many objects and structures present in our daily lives. Each, short chapter contains pictures and a narrative, followed by an experiment (think about the elementary ones we did in the science magazines we read as youngsters).
The pictures are of such a high quality that the overall impression is closer to that of a fine art book (and helps explain the unexpected weight of the tome) than a science book.
On finishing the book, I am tempted to place it on a coffee table rather than on a shelf of our family library.
Bravo!!
July 23, 2022
The book is a mix of different “paradoxes”. Some of these are true paradoxes and some of them are just unintuitive. I knew about most of them before, but there were also some that were new and interesting to me.
There is a format for each paradox, in which first the paradox is defined, then some claims about the possible resolutions are made, and then the real solutions or possible solutions are discussed. For most paradoxes, the claims section doesn’t really work. It seems the author to adhere to the formatting, just made some stupid claims. I personally just got used to skipping them.
The book may serve as a good catalog of paradoxes, but in some cases, it points to more interesting concepts that are not or can not be explored in the book.
There is a format for each paradox, in which first the paradox is defined, then some claims about the possible resolutions are made, and then the real solutions or possible solutions are discussed. For most paradoxes, the claims section doesn’t really work. It seems the author to adhere to the formatting, just made some stupid claims. I personally just got used to skipping them.
The book may serve as a good catalog of paradoxes, but in some cases, it points to more interesting concepts that are not or can not be explored in the book.
July 1, 2020
I’ll be saving this for the reread pile. The first part of the book heavily borrows its explanations from symbolic logic. I’m actually a geek that likes symbolic logic, but I’m a little rusty on its usage,
Later on he uses some examples from mathematics and science to illustrate other paradoxes. I found these easier to follow, and was familiar with some of them already.
Later on he uses some examples from mathematics and science to illustrate other paradoxes. I found these easier to follow, and was familiar with some of them already.
August 5, 2024
Covered a lot of well-known and also obscure paradoxes. Some of them required a pretty high level of prior math knowledge, and I had trouble following all of them, to be honest. Also a surprisingly high number of references and quotes from Ayn Rand. Overall, an interesting and sometimes challenging read.
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December 14, 2021About what you'd expect from a collection of paradoxes. If you've already encountered one then its section probably won't illuminate you a whole lot, but its breadth allows it to feature many that haven't leaked into popular culture yet.
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January 16, 20223b1b
June 1, 2023
Generally very interesting paradoxes with clear explanation. Very much enjoyed this collection and feel like I gained a better understanding on most of the topics that the paradoxes touch upon. However, the writing and accompanying philosophising is sometimes quite dry and at a select few sections devolves into a pretentious word vomit. The sections not written by the main author generally flowed much smoother than those that were. Also Ayn Rand is quoted weirdly frequently, which makes some sense in sections that relate to economics, but felt very out of place in most other sections.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews