Within the past ten years, however, mathematicians have proven that they hold the key to unlocking the mysteries of our world--and ourselves. In The Mathematics of Life, Ian Stewart provides a fascinating overview of the vital but little-recognized role mathematics has played in pulling back the curtain on the hidden complexities of the natural world--and how its contribution will be even more vital in the years ahead. In his characteristically clear and entertaining fashion, Stewart explains how mathematicians and biologists have come to work together on some of the most difficult scientific problems that the human race has ever tackled, including the nature and origin of life itself.

    You'll find out how to unknot your DNA, how to count like a supercomputer and how to become famous for solving mathematics' most challenging problem.

    It was studied from antiquity to the Renaissance as a way of glimpsing the nature of reality. Geometry is number in space; music is number in time; and comology expresses number in space and time. Number, music, and geometry are metaphysical truths: life across the universe investigates them; they foreshadow the physical sciences.Quadrivium is the first volume to bring together these four subjects in many hundreds of years. Composed of six successful titles in the Wooden Books series-Sacred Geometry, Sacred Number, Harmonograph, The Elements of Music, Platonic & Archimedean Solids, and A Little Book of Coincidence-it makes ancient wisdom and its astonishing interconnectedness accessible to us today.Beautifully produced in six different colors of ink, Quadrivium will appeal to anyone interested in mathematics, music, astronomy, and how the universe works.

    Fearlessly pondering life’s end, Holloway examines how doubts too often paralyze people. He explains, “A sentence is not finished till it has a full stop, and every life needs a dying to complete it … Our brief finitude is but a beautiful spark in the vast darkness of space. So we should live the fleeting day with passion and, when the night comes, depart from it with grace.” Written in the context of organized religion’s structural difficulties, Looking in the Distance is a highly personal and meditative work that helps us better understand the myriad ways in which the human search for wholeness and healing can be approached. Accessible, funny, inquisitive and ever hopeful, it will inspire all who read it.

    A. Zee, a distinguished physicist and skillful expositor, tells the exciting story of how today's theoretical physicists are following Einstein in their search for the beauty and simplicity of Nature. Animated by a sense of reverence and whimsy, the book describes the majestic sweep and accomplishments of twentieth-century physics. In the end, we stand in awe before the grand vision of modern physics--one of the greatest chapters in the intellectual history of humankind.

    Quine's areas of interest are panoramic, as this lively book amply demonstrates.Moving from A (alphabet) to Z (zero), Quiddities roams through more than eighty topics, each providing a full measure of piquant thought, wordplay, and wisdom, couched in easy and elegant prose--"Quine at his unbuttoned best," in Donald Davidson's words. Philosophy, language, and mathematics are the subjects most fully represented; tides of entries include belief, communication, free will, idiotisms, longitude and latitude, marks, prizes, Latin pronunciation, tolerance, trinity. Even the more technical entries are larded with homely lore, anecdote, and whimsical humor.Quiddities will be a treat for admirers of Quine and for others who like to think, who care about language, and who enjoy the free play of intellect on topics large and small. For this select audience, it is an ideal book for browsing.

    Poetry, patterns like Pascal's triangle, philosophy, psychology, music, and dozens of simple mathematical figures are enlisted to show that the "divine proportion" or "golden ratio" is a feature of geometry and analysis which awakes answering echoes in the human psyche. When we judge a work of art aesthetically satisfying, according to his formulation, we are making it conform to a pattern whose outline is laid down in simple geometrical figures; and it is the analysis of these figures which forms the core of Professor Huntley's book.For the philosopher, scientist, poet, art historian, music listener, artist, as well as the general reader who wants to understand more about the fascinating properties of numbers, this is a beautifully written, exciting account of the search for a naturally manifested aesthetic that has occupied man since he first asked the question "why?""This is a delightful book to read. . . . It wanders here and there through some of the most attractive byways of simple mathematics, returning always to the oddities and pleasures of the golden section. This is a browser's book — a happy, untidy traveling or bedside book for those who know how to enjoy the charm of numbers and shapes." — Dr. J. Bronowski, The Salk Institute.

    By 1949, Godel had produced a remarkable proof: In any universe described by the Theory of Relativity, time cannot exist. Einstein endorsed this result reluctantly but he could find no way to refute it, since then, neither has anyone else. Yet cosmologists and philosophers alike have proceeded as if this discovery was never made. In A World Without Time, Palle Yourgrau sets out to restore Godel to his rightful place in history, telling the story of two magnificent minds put on the shelf by the scientific fashions of their day, and attempts to rescue the brilliant work they did together.

    Following on the success of Quadrivium and Sciencia, Trivium gathers six Wooden Books titles together into a beautiful six-color package that presents ancient wisdom in an accessible way. Trivium includes the books Euphonics, Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric,, Poetic Meter and Form, and Ethics.

    In "Musimathics," Loy teaches us the tune, providing a friendly and spirited tour of the mathematics of music -- a commonsense, self-contained introduction for the nonspecialist reader. It is designed for musicians who find their art increasingly mediated by technology, and for anyone who is interested in the intersection of art and science.In Volume 1, Loy presents the materials of music (notes, intervals, and scales); the physical properties of music (frequency, amplitude, duration, and timbre); the perception of music and sound (how we hear); and music composition. Calling himself "a composer seduced into mathematics," Loy provides answers to foundational questions about the mathematics of music accessibly yet rigorously. The examples given are all practical problems in music and audio.Additional material can be found at http: //www.musimathics.com.

    This is done in a way that is not only easy to understand, but is actually fun! Professors and engineers, with high school and college students following closely, comprise the largest percentage of our readers. It is a must-have for anyone interested in music, mathematics, physics, engineering, or complex science. Dr. Yoichiro Nambu, 2008 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, served as a senior adviser to the English version of Who is Fourier? A Mathematical Adventure.

    Casti contemplates an imaginary evening of intellectual inquiry—a sort of “My Dinner with” not Andre, but five of the most brilliant thinkers of the twentieth century.Imagine, if you will, one stormy summer evening in 1949, as novelist and scientist C. P. Snow, Britain’s distinguished wartime science advisor and author of The Two Cultures, invites four singular guests to a sumptuous seven-course dinner at his alma mater, Christ’s College, Cambridge, to discuss one of the emerging scientific issues of the day: Can we build a machine that could duplicate human cognitive processes? The distinguished guest list for Snow’s dinner consists of physicist Erwin Schrodinger, inventor of wave mechanics; Ludwig Wittgenstein, the famous twentieth-century philosopher of language, who posited two completely contradictory theories of human thought in his lifetime; population geneticist/science popularizer J.B.S. Haldane; and Alan Turing, the mathematician/codebreaker who formulated the computing scheme that foreshadowed the logical structure of all modern computers. Capturing not only their unique personalities but also their particular stands on this fascinating issue, Casti dramatically shows what each of these great men might have argued about artificial intelligence, had they actually gathered for dinner that midsummer evening.With Snow acting as referee, a lively intellectual debate unfolds. Philosopher Wittgenstein argues that in order to become conscious, a machine would have to have life experiences similar to those of human beings—such as pain, joy, grief, or pleasure. Biologist Haldane offers the idea that mind is a separate entity from matter, so that regardless of how sophisticated the machine, only flesh can bond with that mysterious force called intelligence. Both physicist Schrodinger and, of course, computer pioneer Turing maintain that it is not the substance, but rather the organization of that substance, that makes a mind conscious.With great verve and skill, Casti recreates a unique and thrilling moment of time in the grand history of scientific ideas. Even readers who have already formed an opinion on artificial intelligence will be forced to reopen their minds on the subject upon reading this absorbing narrative. After almost four decades, the solutions to the epic scientific and philosophical problems posed over this meal in C. P. Snow’s old rooms at Christ’s College remains tantalizingly just out of reach, making this adventure into scientific speculation as valid today as it was in 1949.

    The author brings to light recently uncovered evidence about ancient Pythagoreanism and its influence on Plato, and reconstructs thefascinating esoteric transmission of Pythagorean ideas from the Greek West down to the alchemists and magicians of Egypt, and from there into the world of Islam.

    Whether you were the king's court astrologer or a farmer marking the best time for planting, timekeeping and numbers really mattered. Mistake a numerical pattern of petals and you could be poisoned. Lose the rhythm of a sacred dance or the meter of a ritually told story and the intricately woven threads that hold life together were spoiled. Ignore the celestial clock of equinoxes and solstices, and you'd risk being caught short of food for the winter. Shesso's friendly tone and clear grasp of the information make the math "go down easy" in this marvelous book.BONUS: This book has over 100 illustrations! Click on the Google Preview link to get a glimpse.Excerpt from Math for Mystics: “It’s our collective malaise: Post-Traumatic Math Disorder.“Yet despite how we personally feel about mathematics, our distant ancestors willingly used numbers as pathways into the great patterns of Nature, avenues to understanding the Universe and their own place in it. Many ancient cultures had specific gods and goddesses they credited with inventing mathematical skills. With the aid of divine inspiration and assistance, humans nourished this numerical invention, continually pushing their skills and seeking greater clarity of expression. “Our starting point may seem like a Zero. But for now, before looking at numbers and math, let’s simply see it as a circle. No matter what our spiritual practice, we each live within the circle of creation, each within the circle—the cohesiveness—of our own form...” From John Michael Greer, Grand Archdruid, Ancient Order of Druids in America and author of The Druidry Handbook:“As thoughtful as it is readable, Renna Shesso’s Math for Mystics is the book I wish I had when I first started trying to make sense of the mathematics that underlie so much of modern magic and traditional occult lore. Not the least of its virtues is the way it makes magical number theory accessible even to those who think they don’t like or can’t handle math. It provides a first-rate introduction to a fairly neglected branch of magical lore.”

    Outline of the processes of cosmic evolution, including detailed exercises for attaining higher conscious states.