The best mathematics books, according to hackers
20 mathematics books were recommended on Hacker News between November 2025 and November 2026. We rank them by how many separate people recommend each one. None of them earns the Hacker Approved badge yet.
All 20 mathematics books, ranked
Select a column heading to sort. Approval share is recommenders out of everyone who gave an opinion; the tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs. Months counts the months, out of 13, in which someone recommended it.
| Rank | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Elements by Euclidby Oliver Byrne | 17 | 9 | 65% | 8 | — | — |
| 2 | Fermat's Last Theoremby Simon Singh | 11 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 3 | Gödel's Proofby Nagel and Newman | 10 | 1 | 91% | 2 | — | — |
| Tied 3 | Principia Mathematicaby Whitehead and Russell | 10 | 8 | 56% | 1 | — | — |
| 5 | Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosityby David Bessis | 9 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
| 6 | Exploring Mathematics with Pythonby Arthur Engel | 8 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
| Tied 7 | How to Lie with Statisticsby Darrell Huff | 7 | 1 | 88% | 6 | — | — |
| Tied 7 | Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaningby Aleksandrov et al. | 7 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 9 | The Book of Whyby Judea Pearl | 6 | 1 | 86% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 9 | Street-Fighting Mathematicsby Sanjoy Mahajan | 6 | 1 | 86% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 11 | Surreal Numbersby Donald Knuth | 5 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 11 | Proofs and Refutationsby Imre Lakatos | 5 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 11 | Six Math Essentialsby Terence Tao | 5 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
| Tied 14 | The Signal and the Noiseby Nate Silver | 4 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 14 | Mathematics Can Be Funby Yakov Perelman | 4 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 16 | Elements of Mathematicsby John Stillwell | 3 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 16 | To Mock a Mockingbirdby Raymond Smullyan | 3 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 16 | Elliptic Talesby Avner Ash and Robert Groß | 3 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| Tied 16 | Vision in Elementary Mathematicsby W W Sawyer | 3 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
| 20 | Innumeracyby John Allen Paulos | 2 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
How we rank
Rank is the number of separate people who recommend a product in a Hacker News comment over the past year. Someone who praises the same mathematics book in five threads counts once.
The badge goes to mathematics books that at least 10 people recommend, with recommenders outnumbering critics at least 2 to 1, recommended in at least 4 of the 13 months.
Rankings are never for sale. We may earn a commission when you buy through our links. It never changes the order.