Contributors include Steven Weinberg, Peter Galison, John Maynard Smith, and Frank Wilczek.

    This distinguished little book is a brisk introduction to a series of mathematical concepts, a history of their development, and a concise summary of how today's reader may use them.

    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.

    Charged under an obscure blasphemy law in a small New Jersey town in 1919, Vijay Sahni is challenged by a skeptical judge to defend his belief that the certainty of mathematics can be extended to all human knowledge--including religion. Together, the two men discover the power--and the fallibility--of what has long been considered the pinnacle of human certainty, Euclidean geometry.As grandfather and grandson struggle with the question of whether there can ever be absolute certainty in mathematics or life, they are forced to reconsider their fundamental beliefs and choices. Their stories hinge on their explorations of parallel developments in the study of geometry and infinity--and the mathematics throughout is as rigorous and fascinating as the narrative and characters are compelling and complex. Moving and enlightening, A Certain Ambiguity is a story about what it means to face the extent--and the limits--of human knowledge.