Ok, I love ideas and I have a decent enough scientific education so I reasonably expected this popular science book about group and number theory to be accessible and interesting exploration of an incredibly difficult and esoteric subject.
Unfortunately Ronan was let down by his editor because the structure of the book is painful, the writing difficult to follow and the arguments poorly presented. Sure, Group theory is immensely complex and anyone would think twice about trying to explain the farther fields of a subject that I know turns the brightest of mathematicians into gibbering wrecks pleading for their mothers. However...to be told no less than a dozen times that something will be explained later (and then to have no real link back when those ideas are presented again in a different context) is unforgivable. Furthermore, simply presenting lists of names and telling us they were wonderfully impressive mathematicians is about as enthralling as listing moves you once made in a game of Risk. Without drama, without a decent framework that suggest WHY these ideas are so important it's pretty much like reading Numbers (see what I did there?).
I knew a little about group theory and a little more about symmetry (from a physicists point of view) before reading this. I do not feel I've learned anything new at all now I've finished. You might counter that I'm a scientist and popular science books are not going to educate me...fair enough, but Ronan covers areas of mathematics that I've not even heard of and does little or nothing to explain them, their significance or their context. One crime amongst many is to tell us that people used clever techniques...well thanks mate, I think I guessed that already!
Again, Group theory is horrendously difficult but all the more reason to take ones time in telling the story and presenting the concepts that make it such an important uncovering of what might just be one of the fundamental organising principles of the cosmos.
Oh well.
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