This book helps the reader to understand more fully the inherent need to question your assumptions, to allow yourself the room to fail and to let the uncomfortable unusualness of the world become a natural pathway to insight into all that surrounds us.<br>Through discussion of historical examples, not all of which are mathematical in theme, Ellenberg distills and drives the point clearly.  Mathematical thinkers aren't (just) egg-head, bespectacled geniuses with slight tendencies towards madness; you and I can gain wisdom from the testing of our knowledge.  Whatever settles from the smoke and ruin of personal exploration and dissection of presumptions will always be fruitful.