/Illustrated-Primers

Books that makes heavy use of visuals for scientific communication

Illustrated Primers

This is a catalog of books that makes heavy use of images to communicate scientific ideas. Any pointers to resources that you think are missing from this collection is warmly welcomed. Thanks to Bret Victor, Alan Kay, Max Krieger, Eli Parra, A math student for unearthing these gems.

I run a Twitter thread curating resources for learning algebra visually.

Mathematics

David Mumford, Caroline Series, David Wright (2002)

Cover of Indra's Pearls

Felix Klein, a great geometer of the nineteenth century, rediscovered an idea from Indian mythology in mathematics: the heaven of Indra in which the whole Universe was mirrored in each pearl in a net of pearls. Practically impossible to represent by hand, this idea barely existed outside the imagination, until the 1980s when the authors embarked on the first computer investigation of Klein's vision. The book explores the patterns created by iterating conformal maps of the complex plane called Möbius transformations, and their connections with symmetry and self-similarity. It includes step-by-step instructions for writing computer programs for beginners to generate the images.

Sample content:

Sample content of Indra's Pearls


Elias Wegert (2012)

Cover of Visual Complex Functions

This book provides a systematic introduction to functions of one complex variable. It uses phase potraits to visualize functions as images on their domains. The book requires no prerequisites except some basic knowledge of real calculus and plane geometry. It is self-contained and covers all the main topics usually treated in a first course on complex analysis. With separate chapters on various construction principles, conformal mappings and Riemann surfaces it goes somewhat beyond a standard programme and leads the reader to more advanced themes.

Sample content:

Sample content of Visual Complex Functions


Cover of Visual Group Theory

Nathan Carter (2009)

Visual Group Theory assumes only a high school mathematics background and covers a typical undergraduate course in group theory from a thoroughly visual perspective. The more than 300 illustrations in Visual Group Theory bring groups, subgroups, homomorphisms, products, and quotients into clear view.

Sample content:

Sample contents of Visual Group Theory


Tristan Needham (1997)

Cover of Visual Complex Analysis

A book on complex analysis that uses geometry instead of calculation as a means of explanation. It has lots of diagrams aimed at undergraduate students in mathematics, physics, and engineering. The book has intuitive explanations supported with hundreds of geometric diagrams. The book doesn't require advanced prerequisites and has a user-friendly prose style will help students to master the subject.

Sample content:

Sample content of Visual Complex Analysis


Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos Papadimitriou

Sample image from Logicomix

Sample image from Logicomix

A graphic novel on the life of mathemaicians whos work defined the 20th century breakthroughs in mathematical thinking, a lot of whch lead to the creation of computers. Focuses on the life of Russell as the protagonist and beautiful sketches out the inner turmoils he had to endure to arrive at Principia Mathematica.

George K. Francis

A compendium of various topological transformations illustrated with rich visuals.

Cover of A Topological Picturebook

Sample from A Topological Picturebook

Sample from A Topological Picturebook

Cover of Proofs without words

A collection of proofs that uses diagrammatical reasoning .

Jeffrey Weeks

Cover of The Shape of Space

Michio Kuga

Cover of Galois Dream

John Conway, Heidi Burgiel, Chaim Goodman-Strauss

Cover of The Symmetries of Things

H. Graham Flegg

Cover of From Geometry to Topology

H. B. Griffiths

Cover of Surfaces

A Primer on Mapping Class Groups

Benson Farb, Dan Margalit

Copiously illustrated with topological and geometric structures

Michael P. Hitchman


Physics

Ralph Abraham, Christopher Shaw

Cover of Dynamics


Biology

Smart Biology Text Book

Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology

Clan Apis

Communication

Understanding Comics

Unflattening

Computer Science

The thrilling adventures of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace


Books under consideration

Takes an alternative approach for visualizing vectors. Other books by Weinreich are also worth investigating.