What’s Happening in the Mathematical Sciences is a roughly biennial series of books published by the American Mathematical Society. The series was begun in 1993 by Barry Cipra, my friend and predecessor in the math writing business. Barry wrote Volumes 1-5 in the series. We shared the responsibility (or the blame, as Barry would probably say) for Volume 6, and I wrote volumes 7-9. Volume 10 again was written by both of us.

About the level of this books: Although the primary audience for these books is math students and mathematicians, I always strive to make the explanations accessible and entertaining to as broad an audience as possible. Most of the chapters should be understandable to readers with a standard high-school education in mathematics. A few of them may be easier to appreciate if you have a couple years of undergraduate math. Let’s put it this way: I do not shy away from writing equations or mathematical notation. But I do it sparingly and in the context of a strong narrative.

To find out more about the individual volumes, here is where to go:

If you are interested in a specific branch of mathematics, the index below will point you to volume and chapter numbers that relate to your subject. (Thus, “7/8” means volume 7, chapter 8.) Click on the “Contents” pages for that volume for more detailed information.

Algebra: 7/8, 9/5, 9/9
Analysis (calculus): 6/3, 9/1
Applied mathematics: 6/8, 7/5, 7/9, 8/5, 9/3, 9/7, 9/8
Combinatorics: 6/4, 7/7
Computer science: 6/3, 6/10, 8/1
Computational mathematics: 9/6
Differential equations: 6/7, 6/8, 8/3, 9/2, 9/3
Dynamical systems: 7/1, 8/2, 8/4
Financial mathematics: 8/3
Geometry: 6/1, 7/3, 7/6, 7/7, 8/2, 8/8, 9/2, 9/9
Mathematical biology: 6/8, 8/5, 9/7
Mathematical physics: 6/9, 7/3, 7/4, 8/6, 8/7, 9/1
Mathematics history: 7/7
Number theory: 6/5, 6/6, 7/1, 7/2, 8/7
Probability & statistics: 6/9, 8/6, 9/1, 9/4, 9/8
Topology: 6/1, 6/2, 8/9, 9/5

If you are interested in any of volumes 1-5 (the ones written by Barry Cipra), you can find all the information you want at the AMS website.