Five Golden Rules

Five Golden Rules PDF Author: John Casti
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
In Five Golden Rules, John L. Casti serves as curator to a brilliant collection of 20th-century mathematical theories, leading us on a fascinating journey of discovery and insight. Probing the frontiers of modern mathematics, Casti examines the origins of some of the most important findings of this century. This is a tale of mystery and logic, elegance and reason; it is the story of five monumental mathematical breakthroughs and how they shape our lives. All those intrigued by the mathematical process, nonacademics and professionals alike, will find this an enlightening, eye-opening, and entertaining work. High school algebra or geometry - and enthusiasm - are the only prerequisites. From the theorem that provided the impetus for modern computers to the calculations that sent the first men to the Moon, these breakthroughs have transformed our lives. Casti illustrates each theorem with a dazzling array of real-world problems it has helped solve - how to calculate the shape of space, optimize investment returns, even chart the course of the development of organisms. Along the way, we meet the leading thinkers of the day: John von Neumann, L. E. J. Brouwer, Marston Morse, and Alan Turing, among others. And we come to understand the combination of circumstances that led each to such revolutionary discoveries as the Minimax Theorem, which spawned the exciting field of game theory, and the Simplex Method, which underpins the powerful tools of optimization theory.

Five Golden Rules

Five Golden Rules PDF Author: John Casti
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Five Golden Rules, John L. Casti serves as curator to a brilliant collection of 20th-century mathematical theories, leading us on a fascinating journey of discovery and insight. Probing the frontiers of modern mathematics, Casti examines the origins of some of the most important findings of this century. This is a tale of mystery and logic, elegance and reason; it is the story of five monumental mathematical breakthroughs and how they shape our lives. All those intrigued by the mathematical process, nonacademics and professionals alike, will find this an enlightening, eye-opening, and entertaining work. High school algebra or geometry - and enthusiasm - are the only prerequisites. From the theorem that provided the impetus for modern computers to the calculations that sent the first men to the Moon, these breakthroughs have transformed our lives. Casti illustrates each theorem with a dazzling array of real-world problems it has helped solve - how to calculate the shape of space, optimize investment returns, even chart the course of the development of organisms. Along the way, we meet the leading thinkers of the day: John von Neumann, L. E. J. Brouwer, Marston Morse, and Alan Turing, among others. And we come to understand the combination of circumstances that led each to such revolutionary discoveries as the Minimax Theorem, which spawned the exciting field of game theory, and the Simplex Method, which underpins the powerful tools of optimization theory.

Our Mathematical Universe

Our Mathematical Universe PDF Author: Max Tegmark
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307744256
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate multiverse. In a dazzling combination of both popular and groundbreaking science, he not only helps us grasp his often mind-boggling theories, but he also shares with us some of the often surprising triumphs and disappointments that have shaped his life as a scientist. Fascinating from first to last—this is a book that has already prompted the attention and admiration of some of the most prominent scientists and mathematicians.

How Not to Be Wrong

How Not to Be Wrong PDF Author: Jordan Ellenberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143127535
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
“Witty, compelling, and just plain fun to read . . ." —Evelyn Lamb, Scientific American The Freakonomics of math—a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it. Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer? How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God. Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.

The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time

The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time PDF Author: Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107074061
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 567

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Book Description
Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin argue for a revolution in our cosmological ideas. Ideal for non-scientists, physicists and cosmologists.

Men of Mathematics

Men of Mathematics PDF Author: E.T. Bell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476784256
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
From one of the greatest minds in contemporary mathematics, Professor E.T. Bell, comes a witty, accessible, and fascinating look at the beautiful craft and enthralling history of mathematics. Men of Mathematics provides a rich account of major mathematical milestones, from the geometry of the Greeks through Newton’s calculus, and on to the laws of probability, symbolic logic, and the fourth dimension. Bell breaks down this majestic history of ideas into a series of engrossing biographies of the great mathematicians who made progress possible—and who also led intriguing, complicated, and often surprisingly entertaining lives. Never pedantic or dense, Bell writes with clarity and simplicity to distill great mathematical concepts into their most understandable forms for the curious everyday reader. Anyone with an interest in math may learn from these rich lessons, an advanced degree or extensive research is never necessary.

Canadian Mathematical Bulletin

Canadian Mathematical Bulletin PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description


Mathematics Is about the World

Mathematics Is about the World PDF Author: Robert E. Knapp
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781500551971
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
What is mathematics about? Is there a mathematical universe glimpsed by a mathematical intuition? Or is mathematics an arbitrary game of symbols, with no inherent meaning, that somehow finds application to life on earth? Robert Knapp holds, on the contrary, that mathematics is about the world. His book develops and applies its alternative viewpoint, first, to elementary geometry and the number system and, then, to more advanced topics, such as topology and group representations. Its theme is that mathematics, however abstract, arises from and is shaped by requirements of indirect measurement. Eratosthenes, in 200 BC, demonstrated the power of indirect measurement when he estimated the circumference of the earth by measuring a shadow at noon, in Alexandria, on the day of the summer solstice. Establishing geometric relationships, solving equations, finding approximations, and, generally, discovering quantitative relationships are tools of indirect measurement: They are the core of mathematics, the drivers of its development, and the heart of its power to enhance our lives.

The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory

The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory PDF Author: Christopher Michael Langan
Publisher: Mega Foundation Press
ISBN: 0971916225
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Book Description
Paperback version of the 2002 paper published in the journal Progress in Information, Complexity, and Design (PCID). ABSTRACT Inasmuch as science is observational or perceptual in nature, the goal of providing a scientific model and mechanism for the evolution of complex systems ultimately requires a supporting theory of reality of which perception itself is the model (or theory-to-universe mapping). Where information is the abstract currency of perception, such a theory must incorporate the theory of information while extending the information concept to incorporate reflexive self-processing in order to achieve an intrinsic (self-contained) description of reality. This extension is associated with a limiting formulation of model theory identifying mental and physical reality, resulting in a reflexively self-generating, self-modeling theory of reality identical to its universe on the syntactic level. By the nature of its derivation, this theory, the Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe or CTMU, can be regarded as a supertautological reality-theoretic extension of logic. Uniting the theory of reality with an advanced form of computational language theory, the CTMU describes reality as a Self Configuring Self-Processing Language or SCSPL, a reflexive intrinsic language characterized not only by self-reference and recursive self-definition, but full self-configuration and self-execution (reflexive read-write functionality). SCSPL reality embodies a dual-aspect monism consisting of infocognition, self-transducing information residing in self-recognizing SCSPL elements called syntactic operators. The CTMU identifies itself with the structure of these operators and thus with the distributive syntax of its self-modeling SCSPL universe, including the reflexive grammar by which the universe refines itself from unbound telesis or UBT, a primordial realm of infocognitive potential free of informational constraint. Under the guidance of a limiting (intrinsic) form of anthropic principle called the Telic Principle, SCSPL evolves by telic recursion, jointly configuring syntax and state while maximizing a generalized self-selection parameter and adjusting on the fly to freely-changing internal conditions. SCSPL relates space, time and object by means of conspansive duality and conspansion, an SCSPL-grammatical process featuring an alternation between dual phases of existence associated with design and actualization and related to the familiar wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics. By distributing the design phase of reality over the actualization phase, conspansive spacetime also provides a distributed mechanism for Intelligent Design, adjoining to the restrictive principle of natural selection a basic means of generating information and complexity. Addressing physical evolution on not only the biological but cosmic level, the CTMU addresses the most evident deficiencies and paradoxes associated with conventional discrete and continuum models of reality, including temporal directionality and accelerating cosmic expansion, while preserving virtually all of the major benefits of current scientific and mathematical paradigms.

Poetry of the Universe

Poetry of the Universe PDF Author: Robert Osserman
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307790584
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
In the bestselling literary tradition of Lewis Thomas's Lives of a Cell and James Watson's The Double Helix, Poetry of the Universe is a delightful and compelling narrative charting the evolution of mathematical ideas that have helped to illuminate the nature of the observable universe. In a richly anecdotal fashion, the book explores teh leaps of imagination and vision in mathematics that have helped pioneer our understanding of the world around us.

Love and Math

Love and Math PDF 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.