Visual Differential Geometry and Forms
Visual Differential Geometry and Forms by Tristan Needhamby Tristan Needham
Shares rank 7 of 20 mathematics textbooks by recommenders
Recommended for its visual, intuitive approach to differential geometry, which is beautiful to look at. Caveat: its total lack of formalism makes things difficult from time to time.
Recommended for its visual, intuitive approach to differential geometry, which is beautiful to look at. Caveat: its total lack of formalism makes things difficult from time to time.
4 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 4
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 4 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Visual, intuitive explanation style
“which takes a similar visual intuitive explanation style”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “A pictorial introduction to differential geometry (2017)” Beautiful to look at
“it's quite beautiful to look at from time to time”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “A pictorial introduction to differential geometry (2017)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Lack of formalism causes difficulty
“the total lack of formalism makes things difficult from time to time”
Comment from 16 Aug 2026 in “Möbius Strips and Differential Equations”
Other mathematics textbooks people recommend
The four most recommended other mathematics textbooks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Algorithms for Optimizationby Kochenderfer and Wheeler | 10 | 1 | 91% | 1 | — | — |
| Mathematics for Computer Scienceby Lehman, Leighton and Meyer | 8 | 4 | 67% | 1 | — | — |
| Numerical Recipesby Press et al. | 7 | 1 | 88% | 5 | — | — |
| Concrete Mathematicsby Graham, Knuth and Patashnik | 7 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Visual Differential Geometry and Formsby Tristan NeedhamThis page | 4 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
3 of the 4 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the total lack of formalism makes things difficult from time to time”
“which takes a similar visual intuitive explanation style”
“it's quite beautiful to look at from time to time”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.