Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures

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Название: Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures

Автор: Ian Stewart

Издательство: Basic Books

Год: 2010

Количество страниц: 352

Язык: English

Формат: PDF

Размер: 2.4 Mb

ISBN: 0465017754, 1846682924

Opening another drawer in his Cabinet of Curiosities, renowned mathematics professor Ian Stewart presents a new medley of games, paradoxes, and riddles in Professor Stewart’s Hoard of Mathematical Treasures. With wit and aplomb, Stewart mingles casual puzzles with grander forays into ancient and modern mathematical thought.

Amongst a host of arcane and astonishing facts about every kind of number from irrational and imaginary to complex and cuneiform, we learn:

• How to organize chaos

• How matter balances anti-matter

• How to turn a sphere inside out (without creasing it)

• How to calculate pi by observing the stars

• …and why you can’t comb a hairy ball.

Along the way Stewart offers the reader tantalizing glimpses of the mathematics underlying life and the universe. Mind-stretching, enlightening, and endlessly amusing, Professor Stewart’s Hoard of Mathematical Treasures will stimulate, delight, and enthrall.