I started reading a book with an eerily similar title to this article[1] and it's quite a good read so far, similarly discussing symmetry, as well as the history behind the development of this theory.
I've got that and read it (well tried to read it) multiple times. The first few chapters I agree are readable and a nice introduction but it rapidly descends into very technical and IMO quite opaque writing. I would've preferred a book twice the length that had aspects of a maths textbook. As it stands I think the authors of that work assume far too much for the latter half of the book.
It's also terribly typeset on Kindle. I only mention because I also recommended this book a month or so ago on the post about the quintic [1]. I gave this a 3/5 on Amazon UK. Here's my review [2]:
> This review relates to the (shockingly expensive) kindle edition. At almost £20 you would expect the publishers to have proofed this a lot more. There are references throughout to pages and theorems that have no link (and are therefore difficult to follow on an e-reader), some footnotes are instead displayed inline which is confusing, in other places there are errors in the rendered formulas that force you to stop and re-read it to work out what bit was printed wrong.
> The material itself is certainly interesting but the authors are I think deluding themselves if they believe this a book accessible to someone with just a knowledge of calculus. I've studied group theory formally and this book is heavy going. Part 1 is reasonable but beyond that, it quickly becomes dense and terse and far too short. I had high hopes for this book but it, unfortunately, falls short of the mark. I wish it was twice the length and with more care to the proofing during the ebook creation.
On the topic of the Monster group, there was a very much pop-math book about it that I read called "Symmetry and the Monster". It's at the total opposite end of the spectrum compared to Fearless Symmetry (which deals with Galois theory). It's a good casual read [3] but don't expect deep insight. I would really love if there was an author like Paul Nahin [4] writing books on abstract mathematics in a similar style. If you are into just generally "advanced" books that are very readable he is an absolute joy.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Symmetry-Monster-Greatest-Quests-Math...
It's also terribly typeset on Kindle. I only mention because I also recommended this book a month or so ago on the post about the quintic [1]. I gave this a 3/5 on Amazon UK. Here's my review [2]:
> This review relates to the (shockingly expensive) kindle edition. At almost £20 you would expect the publishers to have proofed this a lot more. There are references throughout to pages and theorems that have no link (and are therefore difficult to follow on an e-reader), some footnotes are instead displayed inline which is confusing, in other places there are errors in the rendered formulas that force you to stop and re-read it to work out what bit was printed wrong.
> The material itself is certainly interesting but the authors are I think deluding themselves if they believe this a book accessible to someone with just a knowledge of calculus. I've studied group theory formally and this book is heavy going. Part 1 is reasonable but beyond that, it quickly becomes dense and terse and far too short. I had high hopes for this book but it, unfortunately, falls short of the mark. I wish it was twice the length and with more care to the proofing during the ebook creation.
On the topic of the Monster group, there was a very much pop-math book about it that I read called "Symmetry and the Monster". It's at the total opposite end of the spectrum compared to Fearless Symmetry (which deals with Galois theory). It's a good casual read [3] but don't expect deep insight. I would really love if there was an author like Paul Nahin [4] writing books on abstract mathematics in a similar style. If you are into just generally "advanced" books that are very readable he is an absolute joy.
[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symmetry-Monster-Greatest-Quests-Ma...
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Paul-J.-Nahin/e/B001HCS1XI