Are Numbers Real?

Are Numbers Real? PDF Author: Brian Clegg
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 146689296X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Have you ever wondered what humans did before numbers existed? How they organized their lives, traded goods, or kept track of their treasures? What would your life be like without them? Numbers began as simple representations of everyday things, but mathematics rapidly took on a life of its own, occupying a parallel virtual world. In Are Numbers Real?, Brian Clegg explores the way that math has become more and more detached from reality, and yet despite this is driving the development of modern physics. From devising a new counting system based on goats, through the weird and wonderful mathematics of imaginary numbers and infinity, to the debate over whether mathematics has too much influence on the direction of science, this fascinating and accessible book opens the reader’s eyes to the hidden reality of the strange yet familiar entities that are numbers.

Are Numbers Real?

Are Numbers Real? PDF Author: Brian Clegg
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 146689296X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Have you ever wondered what humans did before numbers existed? How they organized their lives, traded goods, or kept track of their treasures? What would your life be like without them? Numbers began as simple representations of everyday things, but mathematics rapidly took on a life of its own, occupying a parallel virtual world. In Are Numbers Real?, Brian Clegg explores the way that math has become more and more detached from reality, and yet despite this is driving the development of modern physics. From devising a new counting system based on goats, through the weird and wonderful mathematics of imaginary numbers and infinity, to the debate over whether mathematics has too much influence on the direction of science, this fascinating and accessible book opens the reader’s eyes to the hidden reality of the strange yet familiar entities that are numbers.

Humble Pi

Humble Pi PDF Author: Matt Parker
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593084691
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AN ADAM SAVAGE BOOK CLUB PICK The book-length answer to anyone who ever put their hand up in math class and asked, “When am I ever going to use this in the real world?” “Fun, informative, and relentlessly entertaining, Humble Pi is a charming and very readable guide to some of humanity's all-time greatest miscalculations—that also gives you permission to feel a little better about some of your own mistakes.” —Ryan North, author of How to Invent Everything Our whole world is built on math, from the code running a website to the equations enabling the design of skyscrapers and bridges. Most of the time this math works quietly behind the scenes . . . until it doesn’t. All sorts of seemingly innocuous mathematical mistakes can have significant consequences. Math is easy to ignore until a misplaced decimal point upends the stock market, a unit conversion error causes a plane to crash, or someone divides by zero and stalls a battleship in the middle of the ocean. Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near misses, and mathematical mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman Empire, and an Olympic team, Matt Parker uncovers the bizarre ways math trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world. Getting it wrong has never been more fun.

Real-Life Math

Real-Life Math PDF Author: Ellen McPeek Glisan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781416410546
Category : Finance, Personal
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In Real-Life Math: Living on a Paycheck, students use math skills to learn about life. For example, they learn to use a debit card, keep a check register, and use online banking--not for the sake of learning the skills, but as a way to pay their bills and keep track of their finances. Their individual check registers become a tool rather than a lesson.In Real-Life Math, skills are used and then repeatedly reinforced due to the natural pattern of repetition that is found in life. For example, bills are not paid during a 1-week lesson on paying bills. Rather, bills are paid repeatedly throughout the program because paying bills is a repetitive event in life. This constant recurrence that is natural in daily life serves as a perfect learn-review-review-review-review pattern in the classroom. As students learn to function in the make-believe town of Willow, U.S.A., they truly learn to function in life.Most students can benefit from this method of learning consumer math; however, for students who struggle in school, this approach might be the only way they will really learn needed math skills. Students who have not previously had success in math can succeed with this program because it offers an opportunity to learn by doing. Many people learn best by doing and, for some students, hands-on participation is the only way they learn well. For this reason, teaching math through a simulation that models real life is a logical idea.Real-Life Math: Living on a Paycheck offers a realistic life-experience method of teaching financial literacy, as students learn a wide range of financial skills within the context of simulation. This format allows students to learn all the skills in relation to each other rather than in isolation. Using this approach is logical because financial skills are rarely used in isolation in real life.

Beautiful, Simple, Exact, Crazy

Beautiful, Simple, Exact, Crazy PDF Author: Apoorva Khare
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300190891
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
In this vibrant work, which is ideal for both teaching and learning, Apoorva Khare and Anna Lachowska explain the mathematics essential for understanding and appreciating our quantitative world. They show with examples that mathematics is a key tool in the creation and appreciation of art, music, and literature, not just science and technology. The book covers basic mathematical topics from logarithms to statistics, but the authors eschew mundane finance and probability problems. Instead, they explain how modular arithmetic helps keep our online transactions safe, how logarithms justify the twelve-tone scale commonly used in music, and how transmissions by deep space probes are similar to knights serving as messengers for their traveling prince. Ideal for coursework in introductory mathematics and requiring no knowledge of calculus, Khare and Lachowska's enlightening mathematics tour will appeal to a wide audience.

The Art of Logic in an Illogical World

The Art of Logic in an Illogical World PDF Author: Eugenia Cheng
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 154167250X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
How both logical and emotional reasoning can help us live better in our post-truth world In a world where fake news stories change election outcomes, has rationality become futile? In The Art of Logic in an Illogical World, Eugenia Cheng throws a lifeline to readers drowning in the illogic of contemporary life. Cheng is a mathematician, so she knows how to make an airtight argument. But even for her, logic sometimes falls prey to emotion, which is why she still fears flying and eats more cookies than she should. If a mathematician can't be logical, what are we to do? In this book, Cheng reveals the inner workings and limitations of logic, and explains why alogic -- for example, emotion -- is vital to how we think and communicate. Cheng shows us how to use logic and alogic together to navigate a world awash in bigotry, mansplaining, and manipulative memes. Insightful, useful, and funny, this essential book is for anyone who wants to think more clearly.

Towards a Philosophy of Real Mathematics

Towards a Philosophy of Real Mathematics PDF Author: David Corfield
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139436392
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
In this ambitious study, David Corfield attacks the widely held view that it is the nature of mathematical knowledge which has shaped the way in which mathematics is treated philosophically and claims that contingent factors have brought us to the present thematically limited discipline. Illustrating his discussion with a wealth of examples, he sets out a variety of approaches to new thinking about the philosophy of mathematics, ranging from an exploration of whether computers producing mathematical proofs or conjectures are doing real mathematics, to the use of analogy, the prospects for a Bayesian confirmation theory, the notion of a mathematical research programme and the ways in which new concepts are justified. His inspiring book challenges both philosophers and mathematicians to develop the broadest and richest philosophical resources for work in their disciplines and points clearly to the ways in which this can be done.

A Readable Introduction to Real Mathematics

A Readable Introduction to Real Mathematics PDF Author: Daniel Rosenthal
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319056549
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Designed for an undergraduate course or for independent study, this text presents sophisticated mathematical ideas in an elementary and friendly fashion. The fundamental purpose of this book is to engage the reader and to teach a real understanding of mathematical thinking while conveying the beauty and elegance of mathematics. The text focuses on teaching the understanding of mathematical proofs. The material covered has applications both to mathematics and to other subjects. The book contains a large number of exercises of varying difficulty, designed to help reinforce basic concepts and to motivate and challenge the reader. The sole prerequisite for understanding the text is basic high school algebra; some trigonometry is needed for Chapters 9 and 12. Topics covered include: mathematical induction - modular arithmetic - the fundamental theorem of arithmetic - Fermat's little theorem - RSA encryption - the Euclidean algorithm -rational and irrational numbers - complex numbers - cardinality - Euclidean plane geometry - constructability (including a proof that an angle of 60 degrees cannot be trisected with a straightedge and compass). This textbook is suitable for a wide variety of courses and for a broad range of students in the fields of education, liberal arts, physical sciences and mathematics. Students at the senior high school level who like mathematics will also be able to further their understanding of mathematical thinking by reading this book.

Is Maths Real?

Is Maths Real? PDF Author: Eugenia Cheng
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1782839240
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Why is -(-1) = 1? Why do odd and even numbers alternate? What's the point of algebra? Is maths even real? From imaginary numbers to the perplexing order of operations we all had drilled into us, Eugenia Cheng - mathematician, writer and woman on a mission to rid the world of maths phobia - brings us maths as we've never seen it before, revealing how profound insights can emerge from seemingly unlikely sources. Written with intelligence and passion, Is Maths Real? is a celebration of the true, curious spirit of the discipline.

Real-World Math

Real-World Math PDF Author: Genene Rhodes
Publisher: Teacher Created Resources
ISBN: 0743932676
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
Guided practice and activity pages help students formulate complete answers to real-life problems involving logical reasoning, pre-algebra, decimals, percentages, basic geometry, graphs, and statistics.

What Is Mathematics, Really?

What Is Mathematics, Really? PDF Author: Reuben Hersh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198027362
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Most philosophers of mathematics treat it as isolated, timeless, ahistorical, inhuman. Reuben Hersh argues the contrary, that mathematics must be understood as a human activity, a social phenomenon, part of human culture, historically evolved, and intelligible only in a social context. Hersh pulls the screen back to reveal mathematics as seen by professionals, debunking many mathematical myths, and demonstrating how the "humanist" idea of the nature of mathematics more closely resembles how mathematicians actually work. At the heart of his book is a fascinating historical account of the mainstream of philosophy--ranging from Pythagoras, Descartes, and Spinoza, to Bertrand Russell, David Hilbert, and Rudolph Carnap--followed by the mavericks who saw mathematics as a human artifact, including Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Mill, and Lakatos. What is Mathematics, Really? reflects an insider's view of mathematical life, and will be hotly debated by anyone with an interest in mathematics or the philosophy of science.