A Mathematician's Apology

A Mathematician's Apology

Author: G. H. Hardy

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1992-01-31

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 9780521427067

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G. H. Hardy was one of this century's finest mathematical thinkers, renowned among his contemporaries as a 'real mathematician ... the purest of the pure'. He was also, as C. P. Snow recounts in his Foreword, 'unorthodox, eccentric, radical, ready to talk about anything'. This 'apology', written in 1940 as his mathematical powers were declining, offers a brilliant and engaging account of mathematics as very much more than a science; when it was first published, Graham Greene hailed it alongside Henry James's notebooks as 'the best account of what it was like to be a creative artist'. C. P. Snow's Foreword gives sympathetic and witty insights into Hardy's life, with its rich store of anecdotes concerning his collaboration with the brilliant Indian mathematician Ramanujan, his aphorisms and idiosyncrasies, and his passion for cricket. This is a unique account of the fascination of mathematics and of one of its most compelling exponents in modern times.


Mathematics without Apologies

Mathematics without Apologies

Author: Michael Harris

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-05-30

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 0691175837

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An insightful reflection on the mathematical soul What do pure mathematicians do, and why do they do it? Looking beyond the conventional answers—for the sake of truth, beauty, and practical applications—this book offers an eclectic panorama of the lives and values and hopes and fears of mathematicians in the twenty-first century, assembling material from a startlingly diverse assortment of scholarly, journalistic, and pop culture sources. Drawing on his personal experiences and obsessions as well as the thoughts and opinions of mathematicians from Archimedes and Omar Khayyám to such contemporary giants as Alexander Grothendieck and Robert Langlands, Michael Harris reveals the charisma and romance of mathematics as well as its darker side. In this portrait of mathematics as a community united around a set of common intellectual, ethical, and existential challenges, he touches on a wide variety of questions, such as: Are mathematicians to blame for the 2008 financial crisis? How can we talk about the ideas we were born too soon to understand? And how should you react if you are asked to explain number theory at a dinner party? Disarmingly candid, relentlessly intelligent, and richly entertaining, Mathematics without Apologies takes readers on an unapologetic guided tour of the mathematical life, from the philosophy and sociology of mathematics to its reflections in film and popular music, with detours through the mathematical and mystical traditions of Russia, India, medieval Islam, the Bronx, and beyond.


A Mathematician's Lament

A Mathematician's Lament

Author: Paul Lockhart

Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press

Published: 2009-04-01

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1934137332

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“One of the best critiques of current mathematics education I have ever seen.”—Keith Devlin, math columnist on NPR’s Morning Edition A brilliant research mathematician who has devoted his career to teaching kids reveals math to be creative and beautiful and rejects standard anxiety-producing teaching methods. Witty and accessible, Paul Lockhart’s controversial approach will provoke spirited debate among educators and parents alike and it will alter the way we think about math forever. Paul Lockhart, has taught mathematics at Brown University and UC Santa Cruz. Since 2000, he has dedicated himself to K-12 level students at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn, New York.


A Disappearing Number

A Disappearing Number

Author: Simon McBurney (Theatre Complicite)

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-06-21

Total Pages: 93

ISBN-13: 1849432996

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A Disappearing Number takes as its starting point the story of one of the most mysterious and romantic mathematical collaborations of all time. Simultaneously a narrative and an enquiry, the production crosses three continents and several histories, to weave a provocative theatrical pattern about our relentless compulsion to understand. A man mourns the loss of his lover, a mathematician mourns her own fate. A businessman travels from Los Angeles to Chennai pursuing the future; a physicist in CERN looks for it too. The mathematician G.H. Hardy seeks to comprehend the ideas of the genius Srinivasa Ramanujan in the chilly English surroundings of Cambridge during the First World War. Ramanujan looks to create some of the most complex mathematical patterns of all time. Threaded through this pattern of stories and ideas are questions. About mathematics and beauty; imagination and the nature of infinity; about what is continuous and what is permanent; how we are attached to the past and how we affect the future; how we create and how we love. The book features an essay by Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at Wadham College, Oxford, and an introduction by Simon McBurney. The Complicité production was an astonishing success during its run at the Barbican, London in Spring 2007, winning The Evening Standard's Best New Play Award 2007. Called ' Mesmerizing' by the New York Times, 'A Disappearing Number' is a brilliant play, aided with original music composed by the award winning DJ, producer and writer Nitin Sawhney. 'A Disappearing Number' was revived at the Novello Theatre, London in autumn 2010.


Ramanujan

Ramanujan

Author: Godfrey Harold Hardy

Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.

Published: 1999-01-01

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 0821820230

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Another excellent book long out of print but much in demand. This book is pulled together by Ramanujan's primary mentor, G. H. Hardy, who was the first to recognize the amazing nature of Ramanujan's ideas. Another exceptional classic from the Chelsea list.


The Shape of a Life

The Shape of a Life

Author: Shing-Tung Yau

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0300245521

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A Fields medalist recounts his lifelong effort to uncover the geometric shape—the Calabi-Yau manifold—that may store the hidden dimensions of our universe. Harvard geometer Shing-Tung Yau has provided a mathematical foundation for string theory, offered new insights into black holes, and mathematically demonstrated the stability of our universe. In this autobiography, Yau reflects on his improbable journey to becoming one of the world’s most distinguished mathematicians. Beginning with an impoverished childhood in China and Hong Kong, Yau takes readers through his doctoral studies at Berkeley during the height of the Vietnam War protests, his Fields Medal–winning proof of the Calabi conjecture, his return to China, and his pioneering work in geometric analysis. This new branch of geometry, which Yau built up with his friends and colleagues, has paved the way for solutions to several important and previously intransigent problems. With complicated ideas explained for a broad audience, this book offers not only insights into the life of an eminent mathematician, but also an accessible way to understand advanced and highly abstract concepts in mathematics and theoretical physics. “The remarkable story of one of the world’s most accomplished mathematicians . . . Yau’s personal journey—from escaping China as a youngster, leading a gang outside Hong Kong, becoming captivated by mathematics, to making breakthroughs that thrust him on the world stage—inspires us all with humankind’s irrepressible spirit of discovery.” —Brian Greene, New York Times–bestselling author of The Elegant Universe “An unexpectedly intimate look into a highly accomplished man, his colleagues and friends, the development of a new field of geometric analysis, and a glimpse into a truly uncommon mind.” —The Boston Globe “Engaging, eminently readable. . . . For those with a taste for elegant and largely jargon-free explanations of mathematics, The Shape of a Life promises hours of rewarding reading.” —American Scientist


How Mathematicians Think

How Mathematicians Think

Author: William Byers

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-05-02

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 0691145997

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To many outsiders, mathematicians appear to think like computers, grimly grinding away with a strict formal logic and moving methodically--even algorithmically--from one black-and-white deduction to another. Yet mathematicians often describe their most important breakthroughs as creative, intuitive responses to ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox. A unique examination of this less-familiar aspect of mathematics, How Mathematicians Think reveals that mathematics is a profoundly creative activity and not just a body of formalized rules and results. Nonlogical qualities, William Byers shows, play an essential role in mathematics. Ambiguities, contradictions, and paradoxes can arise when ideas developed in different contexts come into contact. Uncertainties and conflicts do not impede but rather spur the development of mathematics. Creativity often means bringing apparently incompatible perspectives together as complementary aspects of a new, more subtle theory. The secret of mathematics is not to be found only in its logical structure. The creative dimensions of mathematical work have great implications for our notions of mathematical and scientific truth, and How Mathematicians Think provides a novel approach to many fundamental questions. Is mathematics objectively true? Is it discovered or invented? And is there such a thing as a "final" scientific theory? Ultimately, How Mathematicians Think shows that the nature of mathematical thinking can teach us a great deal about the human condition itself.


Beyond Infinity

Beyond Infinity

Author: Eugenia Cheng

Publisher: Profile Books

Published: 2017-03-09

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 1782830812

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE Even small children know there are infinitely many whole numbers - start counting and you'll never reach the end. But there are also infinitely many decimal numbers between zero and one. Are these two types of infinity the same? Are they larger or smaller than each other? Can we even talk about 'larger' and 'smaller' when we talk about infinity? In Beyond Infinity, international maths sensation Eugenia Cheng reveals the inner workings of infinity. What happens when a new guest arrives at your infinite hotel - but you already have an infinite number of guests? How does infinity give Zeno's tortoise the edge in a paradoxical foot-race with Achilles? And can we really make an infinite number of cookies from a finite amount of cookie dough? Wielding an armoury of inventive, intuitive metaphor, Cheng draws beginners and enthusiasts alike into the heart of this mysterious, powerful concept to reveal fundamental truths about mathematics, all the way from the infinitely large down to the infinitely small.