A new year's present from a mathematician
Snezana Lawrence (Author)
A New Year's Present from a Mathematician is an exciting book dedicated to two questions: What is it that mathematicians do? And who gets to be called a mathematician' and why? This book seeks to answer these questions through a series of stories ranging from the beginning of modern mathematics through to the 20th century, but not in a usual, chronological manner. The author weaves her story around major questions concerning nature of mathematics, and links mathematicians by the substance of their ideas and the historical and personal context in which they were developed. Ideal as a gift for anyone with an interest in mathematics, this book gives a powerful insight into mathematical concepts in an easy-to-read-and-digest manner, without trivializing their nature. The attention given to engaging examples, framed within a poetic narrative structure, means that this book can be enjoyed by almost anyone, regardless of their level of mathematical education
Electronic books
1 online resource (201 pages) : illustrations
9781000734874, 9780429268847, 9781000735123, 9781000735376, 1000734870, 042926884X, 1000735125, 1000735370
1129173194
Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Table of contents; List of figures; Preface; Acknowledgments; About the Author; Introduction; Twelve Drops of Mathematical Wisdom; Let's Create Our Map; Why the Desert?; Is Mathematics for You, or Are You for Mathematics?; Notes; Chapter 1 January; Mathematical Tribes; I Wrote You a Poem; Newton's Infinitely Important and Infinitely Small Quantities; The Search for the Philosopher's Stone; That Divine Clock; Friends in Need; Notes; Chapter 2 February; The Holy Month of Wisdom; Going Back to Thales; Isidore, the Milesian Approximations in Mathematics, Architecture, and LifeNotes; Chapter 3 March; Hidden Domes and Heavenly Ideas; The Hanging Chain Curve; Wren and Other Curved Shapes; Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
or in Mathematics?; Some Other Interesting Curves; Notes; Chapter 4 April; An Ideal and Emmy; Noether's Abstract Art of Mathematics; Noether Set Down the Law; What About the Ideal and Emmy?; Notes; Chapter 5 May; The Witch that Turned; Newton for, and by, Ladies; The Book; The Spectacle of Newtonianism; Agnesi and the Witch; And, By a Turn in the Storyline ... ; Notes; Chapter 6 June Mathematics is Like ... a Translucent Object Floating in SpaceSolids Named After a Greek Philosopher; The Structure of the Fifth Element; The Translucent Object Floating in Space; Notes; Chapter 7 July; The Power of (Mathematical) Books; The Mathematical Preface; Burning Books; And Then, Across the Pond; Notes; Chapter 8 August; Revolutionary Mathematics; The Real Birthday of Imaginary Bourbaki; The Modern Elements; The Eternal Appeal of Pythagoras; Dangerous Bends; Bourbaki's Theorem
En Fin; Notes; Chapter 9 September; The Mathematical Traveler is at Home Everywhere The Number that Bears Your NameCan I Imagine an Even Bigger Number?; Big Numbers in Antiquity; Erdos and His Mathematical Friends' Numbers; A Famous Mistake and the Value of Big Numbers; Notes; Chapter 10 October; The Rounded Life and Music of Vibrating Strings; The Fourth Dimension; Thought Experiments; Some More Difficult Maths; A Full Circle Back to Le Rond and His Way of Finding Happiness; Notes; Chapter 11 November; We May be Friends, But I Still Have to Check Whether What You are Saying is True; New Worlds on the Horizon; The Boole Family and Their Friends; As Mathematical Families Go ... The Legacy for the FutureNotes; Chapter 12 December; What Can a Mathematician Give to Their Friend as a New Year's Present?; The Journey to Prague; The Witches and Dreams; Friendships that Last Centuries; Let's Pack our Present Neatly; Notes; Final Remarks; Bibliography; Index