Five-Minute Mathematics

Häftad, Engelska, 2008

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Beskrivning

How much math can you cover in five minutes? Quite a bit, if you have a good guide. In this collection of one hundred short essays, Ehrhard Behrends offers a tour through contemporary and everyday mathematics. The topics range from pure mathematics to applications of mathematics to observations about the mathematics that surrounds us in daily life. Here, we read about the parable of grains of rice on a chessboard, the mathematics of the lottery, music and mathematics, intriguing paradoxes, the concept of infinity, the Poincare conjecture, quantum computers, and plenty more.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2008-05-30
Mått:139 x 215 x 23 mm
Vikt:653 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:380
Förlag:American Mathematical Society
ISBN:9780821843482

Utforska kategorier

Matematik inom Naturvetenskap och teknik

Innehållsförteckning

You can't beat the odds Magical mathematics: The integers How old is the captain? Vertiginously large prime numbers Loss plus loss equals win When it comes to large numbers, intuition fails The key for encryption is the telephone book The village barber who shaves himself Quit while you're ahead? Can a monkey create great literature? The birthday paradox Horror vacui Sufficient difficulties with the logic of mathematics are in fact a necessity To change or not to change? The Monty Hall problem In Hilbert's Hotel there is always a vacancy That fascinating number pi How random events become calculable quantities A one-million-dollar prize: How are the prime numbers distributed? The five-dimensional cake One night stand Fly me to the Moon Using residues Top secret! Magical mathematics: Order amidst chaos How does one approach genius? On semitones and twelfth roots Why am I always standing in the wrong line? Zero: An undeservedly underrated number I love to count! Genius autodidact: The Indian mathematician Ramanujan I hate mathematics because... The traveling salesman: A modern odyssey Squaring the circle A step into the infinite Mathematics in your CD player The logarithm: A dying breed Prizeworthy mathematics Why axioms of all things? Proof by computer? The lottery: The small prizes Formulas = concentrated thought Endless growth How do quanta compute? Extremes! Infinitely small? Mathematical observations at the fire department The first mathematical proof is 2,500 years old There is transcendence in mathematics, though it has nothing to do with mysticism Is every even number the sum of two primes? Why we invert conditional probabilities incorrectly Millionaire or billionaire? Mathematics and chess ""The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics"" The search for Mersenne primes Berlin, eighteenth century: A beatuful formula is discovered The first really complicated number P = NP: In mathematics, is luck sometimes unnecessary? Happy 32nd birthday! Buffon's needle Running hot and cold: Controlled cooling solves optimization problems Who didn't pay? What can statistics tell us? Arbitrage Farewell to risk: Options Is mathematics a reflection of the world? Mathematics that you can hear Chance as composer Do dice have a guilty conscience? Strawberry ice cream can kill you! Prosperity for all No risk, thank you! A Nobel Prize in mathematics? Chance as reckoner: Monte Carlo methods Fuzzy logic Secret messages in the Bible? How knotted can a knot be? How much mathematics does a person need? Big, bigger, biggest It is probably correct Is the world a crooked place? Is there a mathematical bureau of standards? The butterfly that fluttered by Guaranteed to make you rich Don't trust anyone over thirty Equality in mathematics Magical invariants Mathematics goes to the movies The lazy eight: Infinity Books need bigger margins! Visualizing internal organs with mathematics A brain in the computer Cogito, ergo sum Does the world have a hole? Complex numbers are not so complex as their name suggests M. C. Escher and infinity A one at the beginning is much more likely than a two The Leipzig town hall and the sunflower Information optimally packaged Four colors suffice! Mathematics makes billionaires Further reading Index.