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Author: Judith Veronica Field
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 264
ISBN-13: 0198523947
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFully illustrated, this story brings together the histories of arts and mathematics and shows how infinity at last acquired a precise mathematical meaning.
Author: Brian Clegg
Publisher: Robinson
Published: 2013-02-07
Total Pages: 185
ISBN-13: 1472107640
DOWNLOAD EBOOK'Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.' Douglas Adams, Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy We human beings have trouble with infinity - yet infinity is a surprisingly human subject. Philosophers and mathematicians have gone mad contemplating its nature and complexity - yet it is a concept routinely used by schoolchildren. Exploring the infinite is a journey into paradox. Here is a quantity that turns arithmetic on its head, making it feasible that 1 = 0. Here is a concept that enables us to cram as many extra guests as we like into an already full hotel. Most bizarrely of all, it is quite easy to show that there must be something bigger than infinity - when it surely should be the biggest thing that could possibly be. Brian Clegg takes us on a fascinating tour of that borderland between the extremely large and the ultimate that takes us from Archimedes, counting the grains of sand that would fill the universe, to the latest theories on the physical reality of the infinite. Full of unexpected delights, whether St Augustine contemplating the nature of creation, Newton and Leibniz battling over ownership of calculus, or Cantor struggling to publicise his vision of the transfinite, infinity's fascination is in the way it brings together the everyday and the extraordinary, prosaic daily life and the esoteric. Whether your interest in infinity is mathematical, philosophical, spiritual or just plain curious, this accessible book offers a stimulating and entertaining read.
Author: Paolo Zellini
Publisher: Penguin Global
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 212
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn A Brief History of Infinity, the infinite in all its forms - viewed from the perspective of mathematicians, philosophers, and theologians - is explored, as Zellini strives to explain this fundamental principle. What is the difference between trueand false infinity? How might we explain away the puzzle of Zeno's paradox? And how is the concept of infinity helping us as we wrestle with the fundamental uncertainties of the quantum world? Paolo Zellini shows that the concept of the infinite is a multifaceted one, and eloquently demonstrates the manner in which humanity has attempted to comprehend that concept for millenia.
Author: David Deutsch
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2011-03-31
Total Pages: 571
ISBN-13: 0141969695
DOWNLOAD EBOOK'Science has never had an advocate quite like David Deutsch ... A computational physicist on a par with his touchstones Alan Turing and Richard Feynman, and a philosopher in the line of his greatest hero, Karl Popper. His arguments are so clear that to read him is to experience the thrill of the highest level of discourse available on this planet and to understand it' Peter Forbes, Independent In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue infinitely? In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility. 'This is Deutsch at his most ambitious, seeking to understand the implications of our scientific explanations of the world ... I enthusiastically recommend this rich, wide-ranging and elegantly written exposition of the unique insights of one of our most original intellectuals' Michael Berry, Times Higher Education Supplement 'Bold ... profound ... provocative and persuasive' Economist 'David Deutsch may well go down in history as one of the great scientists of our age' Scotsman
Author: Loren Graham
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2009-03-31
Total Pages: 252
ISBN-13: 0674032934
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 1913, Russian imperial marines stormed an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Athos, Greece, to haul off monks engaged in a dangerously heretical practice known as Name Worshipping. Exiled to remote Russian outposts, the monks and their mystical movement went underground. Ultimately, they came across Russian intellectuals who embraced Name Worshipping—and who would achieve one of the biggest mathematical breakthroughs of the twentieth century, going beyond recent French achievements. Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor take us on an exciting mathematical mystery tour as they unravel a bizarre tale of political struggles, psychological crises, sexual complexities, and ethical dilemmas. At the core of this book is the contest between French and Russian mathematicians who sought new answers to one of the oldest puzzles in math: the nature of infinity. The French school chased rationalist solutions. The Russian mathematicians, notably Dmitri Egorov and Nikolai Luzin—who founded the famous Moscow School of Mathematics—were inspired by mystical insights attained during Name Worshipping. Their religious practice appears to have opened to them visions into the infinite—and led to the founding of descriptive set theory. The men and women of the leading French and Russian mathematical schools are central characters in this absorbing tale that could not be told until now. Naming Infinity is a poignant human interest story that raises provocative questions about science and religion, intuition and creativity.
Author: Richard Morris
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 239
ISBN-13: 0805047794
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDiscusses how philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, and scientists throughout history have attempted to define infinity, and how each attempt has driven the advancement of physics and mathematics, including the development of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Author: John Stillwell
Publisher: CRC Press
Published: 2010-07-13
Total Pages: 202
ISBN-13: 1439865507
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWinner of a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award for 2011!This book offers an introduction to modern ideas about infinity and their implications for mathematics. It unifies ideas from set theory and mathematical logic, and traces their effects on mainstream mathematical topics of today, such as number theory and combinatorics. The treatment is h
Author: Ian Stewart
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2017
Total Pages: 161
ISBN-13: 0198755236
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIan Stewart considers the concept of infinity and the profound role it plays in mathematics, logic, physics, cosmology, and philosophy. He shows that working with infinity is not just an abstract, intellectual exercise, and analyses its important practical everyday applications.
Author: Steven Strogatz
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 389
ISBN-13: 1328879984
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is the captivating story of mathematics' greatest ever idea: calculus. Without it, there would be no computers, no microwave ovens, no GPS, and no space travel. But before it gave modern man almost infinite powers, calculus was behind centuries of controversy, competition, and even death. Taking us on a thrilling journey through three millennia, professor Steven Strogatz charts the development of this seminal achievement from the days of Aristotle to today's million-dollar reward that awaits whoever cracks Reimann's hypothesis. Filled with idiosyncratic characters from Pythagoras to Euler, Infinite Powers is a compelling human drama that reveals the legacy of calculus on nearly every aspect of modern civilization, including science, politics, ethics, philosophy, and much besides.
Author: Rudy Rucker
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 1983-01-01
Total Pages: 379
ISBN-13: 5885010897
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe book contains popular expositions (accessible to readers with no more than a high school mathematics background) on the mathematical theory of infinity, and a number of related topics. These include G?del's incompleteness theorems and their relationship to concepts of artificial intelligence and the human mind, as well as the conceivability of some unconventional cosmological models. The material is approached from a variety of viewpoints, some more conventionally mathematical and others being nearly mystical. There is a brief account of the author's personal contact with Kurt G?del.An appendix contains one of the few popular expositions on set theory research on what are known as "strong axioms of infinity."
