50 Visions of Mathematics

Erscheinungsjahr 2014
ISBN: 978-0-19-870181-1
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 226 Seiten, Format (B × H): 192 mm x 251 mm, Gewicht: 700 g

Relax: no one understands technical mathematics without lengthy training but we all have an intuitive grasp of the ideas behind the symbols. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), this book is designed to showcase the beauty of mathematics - including images inspired by mathematical problems - together with its unreasonable effectiveness and applicability, without frying your brain.

The book is a collection of 50 original essays contributed by a wide variety of authors. It contains articles by some of the best expositors of the subject (du Sautoy, Singh and Stewart for example) together with entertaining biographical pieces and articles of relevance to our everyday lives (such as Spiegelhalter on risk and Elwes on medical imaging). The topics covered are deliberately diverse and involve concepts from simple numerology to the very cutting edge of mathematics research. Each article is designed to be read in one sitting and to be accessible to a general audience.

There is also other content. There are 50 pictorial 'visions of mathematics' which were supplied in response to an open call for contributions from IMA members, Plus readers and the worldwide mathematics community. You'll also find a series of "proofs " of Phythagoras's Theorem - mathematical, literary and comedy - after this, you'll never think of Pythagoras the same way again.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Briain, Dara O'

Parc, Sam

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik Mathematik Mathematik Allgemein Populäre Darstellungen der Mathematik
• Mathematik | Informatik Mathematik Numerik und Wissenschaftliches Rechnen Angewandte Mathematik, Mathematische Modelle

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- 1: David Acheson: What's the problem with mathematics?

- 2: Alan J. Aw: The mathematics of messages

- 3: John D. Barrow: Decathlon: The art of scoring points

- 4: Greg Bason: Queen Dido and the mathematics of the extreme

- 5: David Berman: Can strings tie things together?

- 6: Ken Bray: Grooves and knuckleballs

- 7: Ellen Brooks-Pollock and Ken Eames: Pigs didn't fly but swine flu

- 8: Chris Budd: Bill Tutte: Unsung Bletchley hero

- 9: Chris Budd and Chris Sangwin: What's the use of a quadratic equation?

- 10: Alan Champneys: Tony Hilton Royle Skyrme

- 11: Carson C. Chow: The mathematics of obesity

- 12: Tony Crilly: It's a small world really

- 13: Graham Divall: How does mathematics help at a murder scene?

- 14: Marcus du Sautoy: Mathematics: The language of the universe

- 15: Richard Elwes: The troublesome geometry of CAT scanning

- 16: Alistair Fitt: The mathematics of sports gambling

- Pythagoras's Theorem: a2

- 17: Marianne Freiberger and Rachel Thomas: A conversation with Freeman Dyson

- 18: Paul Glendinning: A glass of bubbly

- 19: Julia Gog: The influenza virus: It's all in the packaging

- 20: Derek Moulton and Alain Goriely: Mathematicians at the movies: Sherlock Holmes vs Professor Moriarty

- 21: Thilo Gross: Solving the Bristol bridge problem

- 22: David Hand: All ravens are black: Puzzles and paradoxes in probability and statistics

- 23: Andreas Hinz and Marianne Freiberger: The Tower of Hanoi: Where mathematics meets psychology

- 24: Philip Holmes: Career: A sample path

- 25: Steve Humble: Sweets in the jar

- 26: Lisa Jardine: Mary Cartwright

- 27: Adam Jasko: The fallibility of mathematics

- 28: Tom Körner: Anecdotes of Dr Barrow

- 29: Adam Kucharski: Finding Apollo

- 30: Mario Livio: The golden ratio in astronomy and astrophysics

- 31: Peter Lynch: The high-power hypar

- 32: Maarten McKubre-Jordens: This is not a carrot: Paraconsistent mathematics

- 33: Alexander Masters and Simon Norton: The mystery of Groombridge Place

- Pythagoras's Theorem: b2

- 34: Yutaka Nishiyama: Mysterious number 6174

- 35: Colva Roney-Dougal and Vince Vatter: Percolating possibilities

- 36: Caroline Series: Milestones on a non-Euclidean journey

- 37: Simon Singh: Simpson's rule

- 38: David Spiegelhalter: Risking your life

- 39: Ian Stewart: Networks and illusions

- 40: Danielle Stretch: Emmy Noether: Against the odds

- 41: Paul Taylor: Of catastrophes and creodes: How maths benefits from collaboration with other fields

- 42: Rachel Thomas: Conic section hide and seek

- 43: Ahmer Wadee: Sir James Lighthill: A life in waves

- 44: Ahmer Wadee and Alan Champneys: Fail safe or fail dangerous

- 45: Paul Williams: Leapfrogging into the future: How child's play is at the heart of weather and climate models

- 46: Eddie Wilson: Motorway mathematics

- 47: Phil Wilson: The philosophy of applied mathematics

- 48: Thomas Woolley: Mighty Morphogenesis

- 49: Andrew Wrigley: Called to the barcode

- 50: Günter Ziegler: Roughly fifty-fifty?

- Pythagoras's Theorem: c2

Über Autor(innen)

Sam Parc studied mathematics and engineering in the UK, Germany and Australia and has previously worked at the Universities of Bath, Bristol, Cambridge, Manchester and Newcastle and at Imperial College London. She works for the UK's Institute of Mathematics and its Applications where she provides a passion for popularising mathematics. Her previous work has involved writing a mathematical agony aunt column in a provincial newspaper and maintaining a popular online mathematical magazine. She lives in Southend-on-Sea with her large family and dog, Benji. This is her first book.