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The six shortlisted books were:
• Pourquoi est-on penché dans les virages ? (Why Do We Lean into Turns?), Amandine Aftalion, CNRS Éditions, 2023.
• Le Rulpidon sous toutes ses coutures (The Rulpidon Inside and Out), Sylvie Benzoni-Gavage, Dunod, 2024.
• 50 problèmes tordus de mathématiques (50 Twisted Mathematics Problems), Marie-Pierre Falissard, Ellipses, 2023.
• Une singulière promenade mathématique (A Singular Mathematical Stroll), Étienne Ghys, Cassini, 2023.
• Matheuses, les filles, avenir des mathématiques (Female Mathematicians: Girls, the Future of Mathematics), Clémence Perronnet, Claire Marc and Olga Paris-Romaskevich, CNRS Éditions, 2024.
• Laurent Schwartz. Les engagements d’un médaillé Fields (Laurent Schwartz: The Commitments of a Fields Medalist), Emmanuel Marie, Hervé Pajot, Stefano Realdini, Petit à petit, 2024.
The Rulpidon takes the prize
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Sylvie Benzoni-Gavage’s Le Rulpidon sous toutes ses coutures has won the prize. Through its format, content and highly illuminating illustrations, the book makes readers eager to discover more mathematics. It begins with "nothing," or almost nothing: a strange shape explored "inside and out," even by making one with thread and needles. Along the way, readers discover geometry, topology, graph theory, Euler’s formula, map-coloring problems and, in short, a whole swath of mathematics!
Two honorable mentions
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The first honorable mention went to Matheuses, les filles, avenir des mathématiques, by Clémence Perronnet, Claire Marc and Olga Romaskevich. Although it is not strictly speaking a book about mathematics—despite describing several famous problems involving musical rhythms, random walks and calculating the areas of polygons, for example—it uses the tools of sociology to examine the obstacles girls face in studying mathematics, both in how they view it and in gaining access to it. Its lively, colorful prose presents the issue smoothly, raising awareness of all its facets.
Amandine Aftalion’s Pourquoi est-on penché dans les virages ? received the second honorable mention. The book brings mathematics and sport together, an unusual pairing. It is also appealing for the variety of questions it asks, each answered through a thorough yet highly accessible mathematical treatment.
A new trophy
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As with every edition of the prize, the winner receives a trophy. This year it is a striking sculpture in the form of a steel cube, hand-cut and welded by Italian artist Franco Andreatta. Weighing just over a kilogram, the work is entitled Sigma, a tribute to the shape it takes when viewed from the side. Viewed from the front, however, a hexagon appears inside the cube. It stands on a base made from wood salvaged from a tree felled by Storm Vaia, which struck northern Italy in the autumn of 2018. It is a symbolic work that nods to geometry, illusion and metamorphosis, as well as to France’s hexagonal outline and the international nature of mathematics.
