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Author: Reuben Hersh
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400836115
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 429
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Book Description
An exploration of the hidden human, emotional, and social dimensions of mathematics Mathematics is often thought of as the coldest expression of pure reason. But few subjects provoke hotter emotions—and inspire more love and hatred—than mathematics. And although math is frequently idealized as floating above the messiness of human life, its story is nothing if not human; often, it is all too human. Loving and Hating Mathematics is about the hidden human, emotional, and social forces that shape mathematics and affect the experiences of students and mathematicians. Written in a lively, accessible style, and filled with gripping stories and anecdotes, Loving and Hating Mathematics brings home the intense pleasures and pains of mathematical life. These stories challenge many myths, including the notions that mathematics is a solitary pursuit and a "young man's game," the belief that mathematicians are emotionally different from other people, and even the idea that to be a great mathematician it helps to be a little bit crazy. Reuben Hersh and Vera John-Steiner tell stories of lives in math from their very beginnings through old age, including accounts of teaching and mentoring, friendships and rivalries, love affairs and marriages, and the experiences of women and minorities in a field that has traditionally been unfriendly to both. Included here are also stories of people for whom mathematics has been an immense solace during times of crisis, war, and even imprisonment—as well as of those rare individuals driven to insanity and even murder by an obsession with math. This is a book for anyone who wants to understand why the most rational of human endeavors is at the same time one of the most emotional.
Author: Reuben Hersh
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400836115
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Get Book Here
Book Description
An exploration of the hidden human, emotional, and social dimensions of mathematics Mathematics is often thought of as the coldest expression of pure reason. But few subjects provoke hotter emotions—and inspire more love and hatred—than mathematics. And although math is frequently idealized as floating above the messiness of human life, its story is nothing if not human; often, it is all too human. Loving and Hating Mathematics is about the hidden human, emotional, and social forces that shape mathematics and affect the experiences of students and mathematicians. Written in a lively, accessible style, and filled with gripping stories and anecdotes, Loving and Hating Mathematics brings home the intense pleasures and pains of mathematical life. These stories challenge many myths, including the notions that mathematics is a solitary pursuit and a "young man's game," the belief that mathematicians are emotionally different from other people, and even the idea that to be a great mathematician it helps to be a little bit crazy. Reuben Hersh and Vera John-Steiner tell stories of lives in math from their very beginnings through old age, including accounts of teaching and mentoring, friendships and rivalries, love affairs and marriages, and the experiences of women and minorities in a field that has traditionally been unfriendly to both. Included here are also stories of people for whom mathematics has been an immense solace during times of crisis, war, and even imprisonment—as well as of those rare individuals driven to insanity and even murder by an obsession with math. This is a book for anyone who wants to understand why the most rational of human endeavors is at the same time one of the most emotional.
Author: Bharath Sriraman
Publisher: Birkhäuser
ISBN: 331961231X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 357
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Book Description
This Festschrift contains numerous colorful and eclectic essays from well-known mathematicians, philosophers, logicians, and linguists celebrating the 90th birthday of Reuben Hersh. The essays offer, in part, attempts to answer the following questions set forth by Reuben himself as a focus for this volume: Can practicing mathematicians, as such, contribute anything to the philosophy of math? Can or should philosophers of math, as such, say anything to practicing mathematicians? Twenty or fifty years from now, what will be similar, and what will, or could, or should be altogether different: About the philosophy of math? About math education? About math research institutions? About data processing and scientific computing? The essays also offer glimpses into Reuben’s fertile mind and his lasting influence on the mathematical community, as well as revealing the diverse roots, obstacles and philosophical dispositions that characterize the working lives of mathematicians. With contributions from a veritable “who’s who” list of 20th century luminaries from mathematics and philosophy, as well as from Reuben himself, this volume will appeal to a wide variety of readers from curious undergraduates to prominent mathematicians.
Author: Sunil Singh
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1475833776
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
Is the most important language in the universe also capable of making us happy in simple and profound ways? Can we really weave the foundations of lifelong joy—humility, gratitude, connection, etc.—through the apparent complexity of numbers? Have we oversold the practicality of mathematics, while ignoring its larger and more human purposes—happiness? In Pi of Life: The Hidden Happiness of Mathematics, Sunil Singh takes the readers on a unique adventure, discovering that all the elements that are essential for lifelong happiness are deeply intertwined with the magic of mathematics. Blending classic wisdom with over 100 pop culture references—music, television and film—Singh whimsically switches the lens in this book from the traditional society teaching math to a new and bold math teaching society. Written with charming buoyancy and intimacy, he takes us on an emotional and surprising journey through the deepest goldmine of mathematics—our personal happiness.
Author: Philip Davis
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0817682953
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 522
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Book Description
Winner of the 1983 National Book Award! "...a perfectly marvelous book about the Queen of Sciences, from which one will get a real feeling for what mathematicians do and who they are. The exposition is clear and full of wit and humor..." - The New Yorker (1983 National Book Award edition) Mathematics has been a human activity for thousands of years. Yet only a few people from the vast population of users are professional mathematicians, who create, teach, foster, and apply it in a variety of situations. The authors of this book believe that it should be possible for these professional mathematicians to explain to non-professionals what they do, what they say they are doing, and why the world should support them at it. They also believe that mathematics should be taught to non-mathematics majors in such a way as to instill an appreciation of the power and beauty of mathematics. Many people from around the world have told the authors that they have done precisely that with the first edition and they have encouraged publication of this revised edition complete with exercises for helping students to demonstrate their understanding. This edition of the book should find a new generation of general readers and students who would like to know what mathematics is all about. It will prove invaluable as a course text for a general mathematics appreciation course, one in which the student can combine an appreciation for the esthetics with some satisfying and revealing applications. The text is ideal for 1) a GE course for Liberal Arts students 2) a Capstone course for perspective teachers 3) a writing course for mathematics teachers. A wealth of customizable online course materials for the book can be obtained from Elena Anne Marchisotto (
[email protected]) upon request.
Author: Edward Frenkel
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465069959
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
An awesome, globe-spanning, and New York Times bestselling journey through the beauty and power of mathematics What if you had to take an art class in which you were only taught how to paint a fence? What if you were never shown the paintings of van Gogh and Picasso, weren't even told they existed? Alas, this is how math is taught, and so for most of us it becomes the intellectual equivalent of watching paint dry. In Love and Math, renowned mathematician Edward Frenkel reveals a side of math we've never seen, suffused with all the beauty and elegance of a work of art. In this heartfelt and passionate book, Frenkel shows that mathematics, far from occupying a specialist niche, goes to the heart of all matter, uniting us across cultures, time, and space. Love and Math tells two intertwined stories: of the wonders of mathematics and of one young man's journey learning and living it. Having braved a discriminatory educational system to become one of the twenty-first century's leading mathematicians, Frenkel now works on one of the biggest ideas to come out of math in the last 50 years: the Langlands Program. Considered by many to be a Grand Unified Theory of mathematics, the Langlands Program enables researchers to translate findings from one field to another so that they can solve problems, such as Fermat's last theorem, that had seemed intractable before. At its core, Love and Math is a story about accessing a new way of thinking, which can enrich our lives and empower us to better understand the world and our place in it. It is an invitation to discover the magic hidden universe of mathematics.
Author: Zvi Artstein
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616145463
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 428
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Book Description
In this accessible and illuminating study of how the science of mathematics developed, a veteran math researcher and educator looks at the ways in which our evolutionary makeup is both a help and a hindrance to the study of math. Artstein chronicles the discovery of important mathematical connections between mathematics and the real world from ancient times to the present. The author then describes some of the contemporary applications of mathematics—in probability theory, in the study of human behavior, and in combination with computers, which give mathematics unprecedented power. The author concludes with an insightful discussion of why mathematics, for most people, is so frustrating. He argues that the rigorous logical structure of math goes against the grain of our predisposed ways of thinking as shaped by evolution, presumably because the talent needed to cope with logical mathematics gave the human race as a whole no evolutionary advantage. With this in mind, he offers ways to overcome these innate impediments in the teaching of math.
Author: Nel Noddings
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139503960
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 191
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Book Description
There is a huge volume of work on war and its causes, most of which treats its political and economic roots. In Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War, Nel Noddings explores the psychological factors that support war: nationalism, hatred, delight in spectacles, masculinity, religious extremism and the search for existential meaning. She argues that while schools can do little to reduce the economic and political causes, they can do much to moderate the psychological factors that promote violence by helping students understand the forces that manipulate them.
Author: Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1429932422
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
The international best-seller that makes mathematics a thrilling exploration In twelve dreams, Robert, a boy who hates math, meets a Number Devil, who leads him to discover the amazing world of numbers: infinite numbers, prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, numbers that magically appear in triangles, and numbers that expand without . As we dream with him, we are taken further and further into mathematical theory, where ideas eventually take flight, until everyone-from those who fumble over fractions to those who solve complex equations in their heads-winds up marveling at what numbers can do. Hans Magnus Enzensberger is a true polymath, the kind of superb intellectual who loves thinking and marshals all of his charm and wit to share his passions with the world. In The Number Devil, he brings together the surreal logic of Alice in Wonderland and the existential geometry of Flatland with the kind of math everyone would love, if only they had a number devil to teach it to them.
Author: Ian Stewart
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847654320
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
Like its wildly popular predecessors Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities and Hoard of Mathematical Treasures, Professor Stewart's brand-new book is a miscellany of over 150 mathematical curios and conundrums, packed with trademark humour and numerous illustrations.In addition to the fascinating formulae and thrilling theorems familiar to Professor Stewart's fans, the Casebook follows the adventures of the not-so-great detective Hemlock Soames and his sidekick Dr John Watsup (immortalised in the phrase 'Watsup, Doc?'). By a remarkable coincidence they live at 222B Baker Street, just across the road from their more illustrious neighbour who, for reasons known only to Dr Watsup, is never mentioned by name. A typical item is 'The Case of the Face-Down Aces', a mathematical magic trick of quite devilish cunning... Ranging from one-liners to four-page investigations from the frontiers of mathematical research, the Casebook reveals Professor Stewart at his challenging and entertaining best.
Author: H. S. M. Coxeter
Publisher: American Mathematical Society
ISBN: 1470466414
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
Among the many beautiful and nontrivial theorems in geometry found in Geometry Revisited are the theorems of Ceva, Menelaus, Pappus, Desargues, Pascal, and Brianchon. A nice proof is given of Morley's remarkable theorem on angle trisectors. The transformational point of view is emphasized: reflections, rotations, translations, similarities, inversions, and affine and projective transformations. Many fascinating properties of circles, triangles, quadrilaterals, and conics are developed.
