There are deep connections between stars and atoms, between the cosmos and the microworld. Just six numbers, imprinted in the "big bang," determine the essential features of our entire physical world. Moreover, cosmic evolution is astonishingly sensitive to the values of these numbers. If any one of them were "untuned," there could be no stars and no life. This realization offers a radically new perspective on our universe, our place in it, and the nature of physical laws.

    From very simple beginnings he takes us on a thrilling journey to some deep mathematical ideas. On the way, via Kepler and Newton, he explains what calculus really means, gives a brief history of pi, and even takes us to chaos theory and imaginary numbers. Every short chapter is carefully crafted to ensure that no one will get lost on the journey. Packed with puzzles and illustrated by world famous cartoonists, this is one of the most readable and imaginative books on mathematics ever written.

    He turns out to be a bird who discusses maths with anyone who will listen. So when Mr Ruche learns of his friend's mysterious death in the rainforests of Brazil he decides that with the parrot's help he will use these books to teach Max and his twin brother and sister the mysteries and wonders of numbers and shapes.But soon it becomes clear that Mr Ruche has inherited the library for reasons other than pure enlightenment, and before he knows it the household are caught up in a race to prevent the vital theorems falling into the wrong hands.Charming, fresh, with a narrative which races along, the novel takes the reader on a delightful journey through the history of mathematics.

    In The Perfect Bet, mathematician and award-winning writer Adam Kucharski tells the astonishing story of how the experts have succeeded, revolutionizing mathematics and science in the process. The house can seem unbeatable. Kucharski shows us just why it isn't. Even better, he demonstrates how the search for the perfect bet has been crucial for the scientific pursuit of a better world.

    

    This book investigates what cannot be known. Rather than exploring the amazing facts that science, mathematics, and reason have revealed to us, this work studies what science, mathematics, and reason tell us cannot be revealed. In The Outer Limits of Reason, Noson Yanofsky considers what cannot be predicted, described, or known, and what will never be understood. He discusses the limitations of computers, physics, logic, and our own thought processes.Yanofsky describes simple tasks that would take computers trillions of centuries to complete and other problems that computers can never solve; perfectly formed English sentences that make no sense; different levels of infinity; the bizarre world of the quantum; the relevance of relativity theory; the causes of chaos theory; math problems that cannot be solved by normal means; and statements that are true but cannot be proven. He explains the limitations of our intuitions about the world -- our ideas about space, time, and motion, and the complex relationship between the knower and the known.Moving from the concrete to the abstract, from problems of everyday language to straightforward philosophical questions to the formalities of physics and mathematics, Yanofsky demonstrates a myriad of unsolvable problems and paradoxes. Exploring the various limitations of our knowledge, he shows that many of these limitations have a similar pattern and that by investigating these patterns, we can better understand the structure and limitations of reason itself. Yanofsky even attempts to look beyond the borders of reason to see what, if anything, is out there.

    The ship contains an experimental quantum device, lost while en route to a research colony on Europa. On Earth, powerful corporate forces are moving to resume unrestricted, inter-AI communications, their objective being to gain complete dominion over the colonized solar system. But the outer worlds are mobilizing to prevent them from achieving their objective, a fight back which is being led by Solomon, a sentient quantum intelligence (QI), also on Europa. However, once word of the crew’s discovery gets out, they soon realize that ownership of this technology could fundamentally change the balance of power within the solar system, and they now find themselves at the very nexus of a system-wide conflict. Their fight for survival plays out across the solar system, from the mining outposts of the asteroid belt to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and from the great Martian city of Jezero to the irradiated wastelands on Earth. This is an epic tale of humanity’s struggle for survival and meaning in a time when artificial intelligence has finally out-paced our own ability to control it. About The Belt: The story is set a century or so into the future where humanity has colonized most of the inner solar system. The asteroid belt (The Belt) is now a hive of mining activity and ships ply the trade routes to Earth and Mars. The technology depicted, for the most part, is what I consider to be technically plausible, although I do stretch it a little with quantum entanglement. That said, you won’t need a calculator or a slide-rule to enjoy the story.

    

    Topics include: Trigonometric Identities & Equations, Circular Functions, and Polar Equations & Complex Numbers.

    While it's practically required reading in the geek community, xkcd fans are as varied as the comic's subject matter. This book creates laughs from science jokes on one page to relationship humor on another.xkcd: volume 0 is the first book from the immensely popular webcomic with a passionate readership (just Google "xkcd meetup").The artist selected personal and fan favorites from his first 600 comics. It was lovingly assembled from high-resolution original scans of the comics (the mouseover text is discreetly included), and features a lot of doodles, notes, and puzzles in the margins.The book is published by Breadpig, which donates all of the publisher profits from this book to Room to Read for promoting literacy in the developing world.

    This title is intended for those who might enjoy an engaging dialogue on abstract mathematical ideas, and those who might wish to experience how new mathematics is created.

    She's the Chief of Staff at a retirement home, which doesn't sound odd on its own, but when you consider it's a retirement home for witches and other paranormals, the strange factor ratchets up.  And, with a facility full of partly senile but still powerful witches, things go hilariously awry fast. This e-book contains the first three books in the Sunnyside Retired Witches Community series. Book 1: A Bottle Full of Djinn: Zoey Rivers has a pretty great job as Head of Staff at Sunnyside Retired Witches Community. She's good at handling the magical messes that are part and parcel of providing a home for elderly (and some slightly senile) witches. But when the messes turn from slightly sloppy to hugely horrible, Zoey realizes there's more involved than just her residents. If she doesn't figure out who's causing havoc at the Home, the place might not be standing for much longer. If you love crime capers with magic, mayhem, and mystery, you'll adore Zoey Rivers and her comical crew of witch retirees. Please note: This book is a crime caper, not a murder mystery. Book 2: Loony Town: Caring for elderly witches at the retirement home in Sunnyside, California is a full-time job for Zoey Rivers. But when one of them is blitzing, causing magic to act even weirder than normal, things get…well, downright wacky. And when a local insurance agent winds up dead, some of the people Zoey is responsible for become the prime suspects. As the zaniness of the magical blips continues and things get crazier and crazier, Zoey has to work fast and try to stay one step ahead to keep her charges out of jail, figure out who is causing the chaotic blitzing so she can fix it, and also figure out who the real killer is. It’s a tough job, but she's determined to do it. The people who live at Sunnyside Retired Witches Community are counting on her. And she’s not about to let them down now. Book 3: Mummy Issues: Sunnyside Retirement Witches Community gets its fair share of visitors. Some of them like the entertainment and others enjoy volunteering. But when one of the sight-seers ends up dead, Zoey Rivers has to figure out what happened. The residents come up with a fantastic idea: Since the retirement complex seems to have more than its fair share of murders, they figure it might be a good idea to have a psychic on staff. So, Zoey hires Iris. And all the information she pulls from the ghosts of the growing list of victims points to Zoey herself. Except the clues aren't pointing to her. They're fingering someone she'd thought was long dead.Sunnyside Retirement Witches Community gets its fair share of visitors. Some of them like the entertainment and others enjoy volunteering. But when one of the sight-seers ends up dead, Zoey Rivers has to figure out what happened. The residents come up with a fantastic idea: Since the retirement complex seems to have more than its fair share of murders, they figure it might be a good idea to have a psychic on staff. So, Zoey hires Iris. And all the information she pulls from the ghosts of the growing list of victims points to Zoey herself. Except the clues aren't pointing to her. They're fingering someone she'd thought was long dead.

    Readers are encouraged to do math rather than just study it. The author draws upon his experience as a coach for the International Mathematics Olympiad to give students an enhanced sense of mathematics and the ability to investigate and solve problems.

    It used to be that to diagnose an illness, interpret legal documents, analyze foreign policy, or write a newspaper article you needed a human being with specific skills—and maybe an advanced degree or two. These days, high-level tasks are increasingly being handled by algorithms that can do precise work not only with speed but also with nuance. These “bots” started with human programming and logic, but now their reach extends beyond what their creators ever expected. In this fascinating, frightening book, Christopher Steiner tells the story of how algorithms took over—and shows why the “bot revolution” is about to spill into every aspect of our lives, often silently, without our knowledge. The May 2010 “Flash Crash” exposed Wall Street’s reliance on trading bots to the tune of a 998-point market drop and $1 trillion in vanished market value. But that was just the beginning. In Automate This, we meet bots that are driving cars, penning haiku, and writing music mistaken for Bach’s. They listen in on our customer service calls and figure out what Iran would do in the event of a nuclear standoff. There are algorithms that can pick out the most cohesive crew of astronauts for a space mission or identify the next Jeremy Lin. Some can even ingest statistics from baseball games and spit out pitch-perfect sports journalism indistinguishable from that produced by humans. The interaction of man and machine can make our lives easier. But what will the world look like when algorithms control our hospitals, our roads, our culture, and our national security? What hap­pens to businesses when we automate judgment and eliminate human instinct? And what role will be left for doctors, lawyers, writers, truck drivers, and many others?  Who knows—maybe there’s a bot learning to do your job this minute.

    Drawing on their hugely popular BBC Radio 4 show More or Less,, journalist Michael Blastland and internationally known economist Andrew Dilnot delight, amuse, and convert American mathphobes by showing how our everyday experiences make sense of numbers. The radical premise of The Numbers Game is to show how much we already know, and give practical ways to use our knowledge to become cannier consumers of the media. In each concise chapter, the authors take on a different theme—such as size, chance, averages, targets, risk, measurement, and data—and present it as a memorable and entertaining story. If you’ve ever wondered what “average” really means, whether the scare stories about cancer risk should convince you to change your behavior, or whether a story you read in the paper is biased (and how), you need this book. Blastland and Dilnot show how to survive and thrive on the torrent of numbers that pours through everyday life. It’s the essential guide to every cause you love or hate, and every issue you follow, in the language everyone uses.