Alex's Adventures in Numberland

Alex's Adventures in Numberland PDF Author: Alex Bellos
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408809591
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
The world of maths can seem mind-boggling, irrelevant and, let's face it, boring. This groundbreaking book reclaims maths from the geeks. Mathematical ideas underpin just about everything in our lives: from the surprising geometry of the 50p piece to how probability can help you win in any casino. In search of weird and wonderful mathematical phenomena, Alex Bellos travels across the globe and meets the world's fastest mental calculators in Germany and a startlingly numerate chimpanzee in Japan. Packed with fascinating, eye-opening anecdotes, Alex's Adventures in Numberland is an exhilarating cocktail of history, reportage and mathematical proofs that will leave you awestruck.

Alex's Adventures in Numberland

Alex's Adventures in Numberland PDF Author: Alex Bellos
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408809591
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Get Book Here

Book Description
The world of maths can seem mind-boggling, irrelevant and, let's face it, boring. This groundbreaking book reclaims maths from the geeks. Mathematical ideas underpin just about everything in our lives: from the surprising geometry of the 50p piece to how probability can help you win in any casino. In search of weird and wonderful mathematical phenomena, Alex Bellos travels across the globe and meets the world's fastest mental calculators in Germany and a startlingly numerate chimpanzee in Japan. Packed with fascinating, eye-opening anecdotes, Alex's Adventures in Numberland is an exhilarating cocktail of history, reportage and mathematical proofs that will leave you awestruck.

Here's Looking at Euclid

Here's Looking at Euclid PDF Author: Alex Bellos
Publisher: Free Press
ISBN: 9781416588283
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Too often math gets a bad rap, characterized as dry and difficult. But, Alex Bellos says, "math can be inspiring and brilliantly creative. Mathematical thought is one of the great achievements of the human race, and arguably the foundation of all human progress. The world of mathematics is a remarkable place." Bellos has traveled all around the globe and has plunged into history to uncover fascinating stories of mathematical achievement, from the breakthroughs of Euclid, the greatest mathematician of all time, to the creations of the Zen master of origami, one of the hottest areas of mathematical work today. Taking us into the wilds of the Amazon, he tells the story of a tribe there who can count only to five and reports on the latest findings about the math instinct—including the revelation that ants can actually count how many steps they’ve taken. Journeying to the Bay of Bengal, he interviews a Hindu sage about the brilliant mathematical insights of the Buddha, while in Japan he visits the godfather of Sudoku and introduces the brainteasing delights of mathematical games. Exploring the mysteries of randomness, he explains why it is impossible for our iPods to truly randomly select songs. In probing the many intrigues of that most beloved of numbers, pi, he visits with two brothers so obsessed with the elusive number that they built a supercomputer in their Manhattan apartment to study it. Throughout, the journey is enhanced with a wealth of intriguing illustrations, such as of the clever puzzles known as tangrams and the crochet creation of an American math professor who suddenly realized one day that she could knit a representation of higher dimensional space that no one had been able to visualize. Whether writing about how algebra solved Swedish traffic problems, visiting the Mental Calculation World Cup to disclose the secrets of lightning calculation, or exploring the links between pineapples and beautiful teeth, Bellos is a wonderfully engaging guide who never fails to delight even as he edifies. Here’s Looking at Euclid is a rare gem that brings the beauty of math to life.

The Grapes of Math

The Grapes of Math PDF Author: Alex Bellos
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451640129
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
From triangles, rotations and power laws, to cones, curves and the dreaded calculus, Alex takes you on a journey of mathematical discovery with his signature wit and limitless enthusiasm. He sifts through over 30,000 survey submissions to uncover the world’s favourite number, and meets a mathematician who looks for universes in his garage. He attends the World Mathematical Congress in India, and visits the engineer who designed the first roller-coaster loop. Get hooked on math as Alex delves deep into humankind’s turbulent relationship with numbers, and reveals how they have shaped the world we live in.

Snowflake, Seashell, Star

Snowflake, Seashell, Star PDF Author: Alex Bellos
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781782117889
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
Bestselling author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland joins the meditative colouring book craze with this mathematical colouring book.

Count Us In

Count Us In PDF Author: Gareth Ffowc Roberts
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1783167971
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
Main message is that maths is something to enjoy, not something to fear, encouraging the release of deeply rooted maths-linked anxieties. Emphasises that maths is something to be understood, not something to be repeated poly-parrot-fashion, therefore change of perspective that benefits individuals, their children and their grandchildren. Maths is something for all, recognises maths as a natural part of culture.

Patterns of the Universe

Patterns of the Universe PDF Author: Alex Bellos
Publisher: The Experiment
ISBN: 1615193235
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
"A coloring book that reveals math's hidden beauty and contemplative power as never before with 78 coloring designs and games that explore symmetry, fractals, tessellations, randomness, and more."--

Can You Solve My Problems?

Can You Solve My Problems? PDF Author: Alex Bellos
Publisher: Guardian Faber Publishing
ISBN: 9781783351145
Category : Mathematical recreations
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A high-class puzzle book from the bestselling author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland; organised from easy-peasy to ninja level - with stories of puzzle mysteries, histories and scandals along the way this book will make your hippocampus happy.

Quantum

Quantum PDF Author: Manjit Kumar
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
ISBN: 1848311036
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
'This is about gob-smacking science at the far end of reason ... Take it nice and easy and savour the experience of your mind being blown without recourse to hallucinogens' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian For most people, quantum theory is a byword for mysterious, impenetrable science. And yet for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. In this magisterial book, Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly-written history of this fundamental scientific revolution, and the divisive debate at its core. Quantum theory looks at the very building blocks of our world, the particles and processes without which it could not exist. Yet for 60 years most physicists believed that quantum theory denied the very existence of reality itself. In this tour de force of science history, Manjit Kumar shows how the golden age of physics ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century. Quantum theory is weird. In 1905, Albert Einstein suggested that light was a particle, not a wave, defying a century of experiments. Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Erwin Schrodinger's famous dead-and-alive cat are similarly strange. As Niels Bohr said, if you weren't shocked by quantum theory, you didn't really understand it. While "Quantum" sets the science in the context of the great upheavals of the modern age, Kumar's centrepiece is the conflict between Einstein and Bohr over the nature of reality and the soul of science. 'Bohr brainwashed a whole generation of physicists into believing that the problem had been solved', lamented the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann. But in "Quantum", Kumar brings Einstein back to the centre of the quantum debate. "Quantum" is the essential read for anyone fascinated by this complex and thrilling story and by the band of brilliant men at its heart.

Pele: The Autobiography

Pele: The Autobiography PDF Author: Pelé
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847394884
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Even people who don't know football know Pelé. The best of a generation of Brazilian players universally acknowledged as the most accomplished and attractive group of footballers ever to play the game, he won the World Cup three times and is Brazil's all-time record goalscorer. But how did this man -- a sportsman, a mere footballer, like many others -- become a global icon? Was it just by being the best at what he did, or do people respond to some other quality? The world's greatest footballer now gives us the full story of his incredible life and career. Told with his characteristic grace and modesty, but covering all aspects of his playing days and his subsequent careers as politician, international sporting ambassador and cultural icon, PELE: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY is an essential volume for all sports fans, and anyone who admires true rarity of spirit.

Lewis Carroll in Numberland: His Fantastical Mathematical Logical Life

Lewis Carroll in Numberland: His Fantastical Mathematical Logical Life PDF Author: Robin Wilson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039307210X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
“A fine mathematical biography.”—John Allen Paulos, New York Times Book Review Just when we thought we knew everything about Lewis Carroll, here comes this “insightful . . . scholarly . . . serious” (John Butcher, American Scientist) biography that will appeal to Alice fans everywhere. Fascinated by the inner life of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Robin Wilson, a Carroll scholar and a noted mathematics professor, has produced this revelatory book—filled with more than one hundred striking and often playful illustrations—that examines the many inspirations and sources for Carroll’s fantastical writings, mathematical and otherwise. As Wilson demonstrates, Carroll made significant contributions to subjects as varied as voting patterns and the design of tennis tournaments, in the process creating large numbers of imaginative recreational puzzles based on mathematical ideas. Some images in this ebook have been redacted.