Love Triangle: The Life-changing Magic of Trigonometry

(Matt Parker, Allen Lane, £24.85)

Like many people, I suspect, I've never given much thought as to what isosceles triangles are and what they're used for in the course of my daily life. Yet it turns out that it, and other types of triangle are crucially important to many of the everyday technologies we take for granted, such as the seemingly simple task of printing out a colour photo from our phone.

What makes this book stand out is the dizzying range of applications for triangles that Parker covers - from heading off asteroid collisions with Earth, to the humdrum slicing of sandwiches. Moreover, you wouldn't a normally expect to find trigonometry sharing page space with humour, but there are parts of the book that read like 'dad jokes' on steroids.

The more densely technical discussions left me behind, somewhat - but on the whole, Love Triangle is highly engaging and full of surprises.

This book was first reviewed in Teach Secondary magazine.

My original review

The published review (above) was the editor’s amended version. The review I submitted originally was a little different:

My review

Like, I suspect, many people, I have never knowingly come across an isosceles triangle in my life, and wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did. However, it turns out that this and other kinds of triangle are at the root of a lot of the technologies and facilities we take for granted.

For example, 3D printing relies on triangles, as does the seemingly straightforward task of sending a colour photo from your phone to the printer.

Two features of the book stand out. Firstly, the sheer range of applications covered, from heading off an asteroid collision with the earth to cutting triangular sandwiches.

Secondly, it’s not often one would put trigonometry and humour into the same sentence, but in parts this is full of ‘dad jokes’ on steroids.

The highly technical bits left me behind, but on the whole this is both engaging and full of surprises.