# Conceptual Mathematics by Lawvere and Schanuel

4 Hacker News commenters recommended Conceptual Mathematics by Lawvere and Schanuel and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as an accessible introduction to category theory that needs only high-school maths.

## Why people recommend it

- Needs only high-school maths (1 comments): "it only relies on high-school level maths concepts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48179872))
- Very good first book (1 comments): "The first book seems very good" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48784418))
- Looks fantastic to commenters (1 comments): "That looks fantastic actually." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47824698))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Algorithms for Optimization by Kochenderfer and Wheeler](https://hackerapproved.com/p/algorithms-for-optimization.md): 10 recommend
- [Mathematics for Computer Science by Lehman, Leighton and Meyer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mathematics-for-computer-science.md): 8 recommend
- [Numerical Recipes by Press et al.](https://hackerapproved.com/p/numerical-recipes.md): 7 recommend
- [Concrete Mathematics by Graham, Knuth and Patashnik](https://hackerapproved.com/p/concrete-mathematics.md): 7 recommend
- [Start Doing Graph Theory by Sam Burns](https://hackerapproved.com/p/start-doing-graph-theory.md): 7 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521894859?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9780521894852) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Conceptual Mathematics by Lawvere and Schanuel", https://hackerapproved.com/p/conceptual-mathematics/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).