Author: George G. Szpiro
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440634289
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
The amazing story of one of the greatest math problems of all time and the reclusive genius who solved it In the tradition of Fermat’s Enigma and Prime Obsession, George Szpiro brings to life the giants of mathematics who struggled to prove a theorem for a century and the mysterious man from St. Petersburg, Grigory Perelman, who fi nally accomplished the impossible. In 1904 Henri Poincaré developed the Poincaré Conjecture, an attempt to understand higher-dimensional space and possibly the shape of the universe. The problem was he couldn’t prove it. A century later it was named a Millennium Prize problem, one of the seven hardest problems we can imagine. Now this holy grail of mathematics has been found. Accessibly interweaving history and math, Szpiro captures the passion, frustration, and excitement of the hunt, and provides a fascinating portrait of a contemporary noble-genius.
Poincare's Prize
Author: George G. Szpiro
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440634289
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
The amazing story of one of the greatest math problems of all time and the reclusive genius who solved it In the tradition of Fermat’s Enigma and Prime Obsession, George Szpiro brings to life the giants of mathematics who struggled to prove a theorem for a century and the mysterious man from St. Petersburg, Grigory Perelman, who fi nally accomplished the impossible. In 1904 Henri Poincaré developed the Poincaré Conjecture, an attempt to understand higher-dimensional space and possibly the shape of the universe. The problem was he couldn’t prove it. A century later it was named a Millennium Prize problem, one of the seven hardest problems we can imagine. Now this holy grail of mathematics has been found. Accessibly interweaving history and math, Szpiro captures the passion, frustration, and excitement of the hunt, and provides a fascinating portrait of a contemporary noble-genius.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440634289
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
The amazing story of one of the greatest math problems of all time and the reclusive genius who solved it In the tradition of Fermat’s Enigma and Prime Obsession, George Szpiro brings to life the giants of mathematics who struggled to prove a theorem for a century and the mysterious man from St. Petersburg, Grigory Perelman, who fi nally accomplished the impossible. In 1904 Henri Poincaré developed the Poincaré Conjecture, an attempt to understand higher-dimensional space and possibly the shape of the universe. The problem was he couldn’t prove it. A century later it was named a Millennium Prize problem, one of the seven hardest problems we can imagine. Now this holy grail of mathematics has been found. Accessibly interweaving history and math, Szpiro captures the passion, frustration, and excitement of the hunt, and provides a fascinating portrait of a contemporary noble-genius.
Poincaré's Prize
Author: George Szpiro
Publisher: Dutton Books
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
With a reclusive and eccentric hero, dramatic turns, and a million-dollar payoff, Poincare's Prize is the stuff of great fiction. Amazingly, the story unveiled in it is true. >In the world of math, the Poincare Conjecture was a holy grail. Decade after decade the theorem that informs how we understand the shape of the universe defied every effort to prove it. Now, after more than a century, an eccentric Russian recluse has found the solution to one of the seven greatest math problems of our time, earning the right to claim the first one-million-dollar Millennium math prize. >George Szpiro begins his masterfully told story in 1904 when Frenchman Henri Poincare formulated a conjecture about a seemingly simple problem. Imagine an ant crawling around on a large surface. How would it know whether the surface is a flat plane, a round sphere, or a bagel- shaped object? The ant would need to lift off into space to observe the object. How could you prove the shape was spherical without actually seeing it? Simply, this is what Poincare sought to solve.
Publisher: Dutton Books
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
With a reclusive and eccentric hero, dramatic turns, and a million-dollar payoff, Poincare's Prize is the stuff of great fiction. Amazingly, the story unveiled in it is true. >In the world of math, the Poincare Conjecture was a holy grail. Decade after decade the theorem that informs how we understand the shape of the universe defied every effort to prove it. Now, after more than a century, an eccentric Russian recluse has found the solution to one of the seven greatest math problems of our time, earning the right to claim the first one-million-dollar Millennium math prize. >George Szpiro begins his masterfully told story in 1904 when Frenchman Henri Poincare formulated a conjecture about a seemingly simple problem. Imagine an ant crawling around on a large surface. How would it know whether the surface is a flat plane, a round sphere, or a bagel- shaped object? The ant would need to lift off into space to observe the object. How could you prove the shape was spherical without actually seeing it? Simply, this is what Poincare sought to solve.
Poincare and the Three Body Problem
Author: June Barrow-Green
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 9780821803677
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
Poincare's famous memoir on the three body problem arose from his entry in the competition celebrating the 60th birthday of King Oscar of Sweden and Norway. His essay won the prize and was set up in print as a paper in Acta Mathematica when it was found to contain a deep and critical error. In correcting this error Poincare discovered mathematical chaos, as is now clear from June Barrow-Green's pioneering study of a copy of the original memoir annotated by Poincare himself, recently discovered in the Institut Mittag-Leffler in Stockholm. Poincare and the Three Body Problem opens with a discussion of the development of the three body problem itself and Poincare's related earlier work. The book also contains intriguing insights into the contemporary European mathematical community revealed by the workings of the competition. After an account of the discovery of the error and a detailed comparative study of both the original memoir and its rewritten version, the book concludes with an account of the final memoir's reception, influence and impact, and an examination of Poincare's subsequent highly influential work in celestial mechanics.
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 9780821803677
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
Poincare's famous memoir on the three body problem arose from his entry in the competition celebrating the 60th birthday of King Oscar of Sweden and Norway. His essay won the prize and was set up in print as a paper in Acta Mathematica when it was found to contain a deep and critical error. In correcting this error Poincare discovered mathematical chaos, as is now clear from June Barrow-Green's pioneering study of a copy of the original memoir annotated by Poincare himself, recently discovered in the Institut Mittag-Leffler in Stockholm. Poincare and the Three Body Problem opens with a discussion of the development of the three body problem itself and Poincare's related earlier work. The book also contains intriguing insights into the contemporary European mathematical community revealed by the workings of the competition. After an account of the discovery of the error and a detailed comparative study of both the original memoir and its rewritten version, the book concludes with an account of the final memoir's reception, influence and impact, and an examination of Poincare's subsequent highly influential work in celestial mechanics.
Einstein's Clocks and Poincare's Maps: Empires of Time
Author: Peter Galison
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393243869
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393
Book Description
"More than a history of science; it is a tour de force in the genre." —New York Times Book Review A dramatic new account of the parallel quests to harness time that culminated in the revolutionary science of relativity, Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps is "part history, part science, part adventure, part biography, part meditation on the meaning of modernity....In Galison's telling of science, the meters and wires and epoxy and solder come alive as characters, along with physicists, engineers, technicians and others.…Galison has unearthed fascinating material" (New York Times). Clocks and trains, telegraphs and colonial conquest: the challenges of the late nineteenth century were an indispensable real-world background to the enormous theoretical breakthrough of relativity. And two giants at the foundations of modern science were converging, step-by-step, on the answer: Albert Einstein, an young, obscure German physicist experimenting with measuring time using telegraph networks and with the coordination of clocks at train stations; and the renowned mathematician Henri Poincaré, president of the French Bureau of Longitude, mapping time coordinates across continents. Each found that to understand the newly global world, he had to determine whether there existed a pure time in which simultaneity was absolute or whether time was relative. Esteemed historian of science Peter Galison has culled new information from rarely seen photographs, forgotten patents, and unexplored archives to tell the fascinating story of two scientists whose concrete, professional preoccupations engaged them in a silent race toward a theory that would conquer the empire of time.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393243869
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393
Book Description
"More than a history of science; it is a tour de force in the genre." —New York Times Book Review A dramatic new account of the parallel quests to harness time that culminated in the revolutionary science of relativity, Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps is "part history, part science, part adventure, part biography, part meditation on the meaning of modernity....In Galison's telling of science, the meters and wires and epoxy and solder come alive as characters, along with physicists, engineers, technicians and others.…Galison has unearthed fascinating material" (New York Times). Clocks and trains, telegraphs and colonial conquest: the challenges of the late nineteenth century were an indispensable real-world background to the enormous theoretical breakthrough of relativity. And two giants at the foundations of modern science were converging, step-by-step, on the answer: Albert Einstein, an young, obscure German physicist experimenting with measuring time using telegraph networks and with the coordination of clocks at train stations; and the renowned mathematician Henri Poincaré, president of the French Bureau of Longitude, mapping time coordinates across continents. Each found that to understand the newly global world, he had to determine whether there existed a pure time in which simultaneity was absolute or whether time was relative. Esteemed historian of science Peter Galison has culled new information from rarely seen photographs, forgotten patents, and unexplored archives to tell the fascinating story of two scientists whose concrete, professional preoccupations engaged them in a silent race toward a theory that would conquer the empire of time.
The Scientific Legacy of Poincare
Author: Éric Charpentier
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 082184718X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
Henri Poincare (1854-1912) was one of the greatest scientists of his time, perhaps the last one to have mastered and expanded almost all areas in mathematics and theoretical physics. In this book, twenty world experts present one part of Poincare's extraordinary work. Each chapter treats one theme, presenting Poincare's approach, and achievements.
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 082184718X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
Henri Poincare (1854-1912) was one of the greatest scientists of his time, perhaps the last one to have mastered and expanded almost all areas in mathematics and theoretical physics. In this book, twenty world experts present one part of Poincare's extraordinary work. Each chapter treats one theme, presenting Poincare's approach, and achievements.
The Poincaré Conjecture
Author: Donal O'Shea
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141900342
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
The Poincaré Conjecture tells the story behind one of the world’s most confounding mathematical theories. Formulated in 1904 by Henri Poincaré, his Conjecture promised to describe the very shape of the universe, but remained unproved until a huge prize was offered for its solution in 2000. Six years later, an eccentric Russian mathematician had the answer. Here, Donal O’Shea explains the maths behind the Conjecture and its proof, and illuminates the curious personalities surrounding this perplexing conundrum, along the way taking in a grand sweep of scientific history from the ancient Greeks to Christopher Columbus. This is an enthralling tale of human endeavour, intellectual brilliance and the thrill of discovery.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141900342
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
The Poincaré Conjecture tells the story behind one of the world’s most confounding mathematical theories. Formulated in 1904 by Henri Poincaré, his Conjecture promised to describe the very shape of the universe, but remained unproved until a huge prize was offered for its solution in 2000. Six years later, an eccentric Russian mathematician had the answer. Here, Donal O’Shea explains the maths behind the Conjecture and its proof, and illuminates the curious personalities surrounding this perplexing conundrum, along the way taking in a grand sweep of scientific history from the ancient Greeks to Christopher Columbus. This is an enthralling tale of human endeavour, intellectual brilliance and the thrill of discovery.
Henri Poincare: A Biography Through The Daily Papers
Author: Jean-marc Ginoux
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814556637
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
On July 17, 2012, the centenary of Henri Poincaré's death was commemorated; his name being associated with so many fields of knowledge that he was considered as the Last Universalist. In Pure and Applied Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Engineering and Philosophy, his works have had a great impact all over the world. Poincaré acquired in his lifetime such a reputation that, both nationally and internationally, his life and career were made the object of various articles in the daily papers not only in France, but also in the USA. Some of his philosophical concepts have even caused sharp controversies in the Press (as we will discover in this book).This work presents an original portrait of Henri Poincaré based on various press cuttings from The New York Times, The San Francisco Sunday Call, The Times, The Sun, The Washington Post that chronicled unknown anecdotes of his life (for example, his first name was actually not Henri, but Henry; he obtained his high school diploma in sciences with a zero in mathematics, etc.). Such an approach enables the discovering of many forgotten or unknown aspects of his scientific and philosophical works as well as his important role in the public sphere.
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814556637
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
On July 17, 2012, the centenary of Henri Poincaré's death was commemorated; his name being associated with so many fields of knowledge that he was considered as the Last Universalist. In Pure and Applied Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Engineering and Philosophy, his works have had a great impact all over the world. Poincaré acquired in his lifetime such a reputation that, both nationally and internationally, his life and career were made the object of various articles in the daily papers not only in France, but also in the USA. Some of his philosophical concepts have even caused sharp controversies in the Press (as we will discover in this book).This work presents an original portrait of Henri Poincaré based on various press cuttings from The New York Times, The San Francisco Sunday Call, The Times, The Sun, The Washington Post that chronicled unknown anecdotes of his life (for example, his first name was actually not Henri, but Henry; he obtained his high school diploma in sciences with a zero in mathematics, etc.). Such an approach enables the discovering of many forgotten or unknown aspects of his scientific and philosophical works as well as his important role in the public sphere.
Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor
Author: Brian Keating
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324000929
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
"Riveting."—Science A Forbes, Physics Today, Science News, and Science Friday Best Science Book Of 2018 Cosmologist and inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) experiment, Brian Keating tells the inside story of the mesmerizing quest to unlock cosmology’s biggest mysteries and the human drama that ensued. We follow along on a personal journey of revelation and discovery in the publish-or-perish world of modern science, and learn that the Nobel Prize might hamper—rather than advance—scientific progress. Fortunately, Keating offers practical solutions for reform, providing a vision of a scientific future in which cosmologists may finally be able to see all the way back to the very beginning.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324000929
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
"Riveting."—Science A Forbes, Physics Today, Science News, and Science Friday Best Science Book Of 2018 Cosmologist and inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) experiment, Brian Keating tells the inside story of the mesmerizing quest to unlock cosmology’s biggest mysteries and the human drama that ensued. We follow along on a personal journey of revelation and discovery in the publish-or-perish world of modern science, and learn that the Nobel Prize might hamper—rather than advance—scientific progress. Fortunately, Keating offers practical solutions for reform, providing a vision of a scientific future in which cosmologists may finally be able to see all the way back to the very beginning.
Celestial Encounters
Author: Florin Diacu
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691005454
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Celestial Encounters traces the history of attempts to solve the problem of celestial mechanics first posited in Isaac Newton's Principia in 1686. More generally, the authors reflect on mathematical creativity and the roles that chance encounters, politics, and circumstance play in it. 23 halftones. 64 line illustrations.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691005454
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Celestial Encounters traces the history of attempts to solve the problem of celestial mechanics first posited in Isaac Newton's Principia in 1686. More generally, the authors reflect on mathematical creativity and the roles that chance encounters, politics, and circumstance play in it. 23 halftones. 64 line illustrations.
The Poincare Conjecture
Author: James Carlson
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 0821898655
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 185
Book Description
The conference to celebrate the resolution of the Poincare conjecture, which is one of the Clay Mathematics Institute's seven Millennium Prize Problems, was held at the Institut Henri Poincare in Paris. Several leading mathematicians gave lectures providing an overview of the conjecture--its history, its influence on the development of mathematics, and, finally, its proof. This volume contains papers based on the lectures at that conference. Taken together, they form an extraordinary record of the work that went into the solution of one of the great problems of mathematics.
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 0821898655
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 185
Book Description
The conference to celebrate the resolution of the Poincare conjecture, which is one of the Clay Mathematics Institute's seven Millennium Prize Problems, was held at the Institut Henri Poincare in Paris. Several leading mathematicians gave lectures providing an overview of the conjecture--its history, its influence on the development of mathematics, and, finally, its proof. This volume contains papers based on the lectures at that conference. Taken together, they form an extraordinary record of the work that went into the solution of one of the great problems of mathematics.