num_pages: 424
description: Mathematician and popular science author Eugenia Cheng is on a mission to show you that mathematics can be flexible creative and visual. This joyful journey through the world of abstract mathematics into category theory will demystify mathematical thought processes and help you develop your own thinking with no formal mathematical background needed. The book brings abstract mathematical ideas down to earth using examples of social justice current events and everyday life  from privilege to COVID-19 to driving routes. The journey begins with the ideas and workings of abstract mathematics after which you will gently climb toward more technical material learning everything needed to understand category theory and then key concepts in category theory like natural transformations duality and even a glimpse of ongoing research in higher-dimensional category theory. For fans of How to Bake Pi this will help you dig deeper into mathematical concepts and build your mathematical background.
language: English
title: The Joy of Abstraction: An Exploration of Math, Category Theory, and Life
publisher: Cambridge University Press