Book picks similar to
Elements Of The History Of Mathematics by Nicolas Bourbaki
mathematics
history
math
maths
Introduction to Linear Algebra
Gilbert Strang - 1993
Topics covered include matrix multiplication, row reduction, matrix inverse, orthogonality and computation. The self-teaching book is loaded with examples and graphics and provides a wide array of probing problems, accompanying solutions, and a glossary. Chapter 1: Introduction to Vectors; Chapter 2: Solving Linear Equations; Chapter 3: Vector Spaces and Subspaces; Chapter 4: Orthogonality; Chapter 5: Determinants; Chapter 6: Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors; Chapter 7: Linear Transformations; Chapter 8: Applications; Chapter 9: Numerical Linear Algebra; Chapter 10: Complex Vectors and Matrices; Solutions to Selected Exercises; Final Exam. Matrix Factorizations. Conceptual Questions for Review. Glossary: A Dictionary for Linear Algebra Index Teaching Codes Linear Algebra in a Nutshell.
Can You Feel the Silence?: Van Morrison
Clinton Heylin - 2002
Based on more than 100 interviews, this intelligent profile explores Morrison's roots; the hard times he went through in London, New York, and Boston; the making of his seminal albums Moondance and Astral Weeks; and the disastrous business arrangements that left Morrison hungry and penniless while his songs were topping the charts. Detailed are the breakdown of Morrison's marriage, the creative drought that followed, and his triumphant reemergence. In addition, this biography attempts to explain the forbidding aspects of Morrison's persona, such as paranoia, hard drinking, misanthropy, as well as why, in the words of his one-time singing partner Linda Gail Lewis, Morrison's music "brings happiness to other people, not him." Also included is a Van Morrision sessionography that spans 1964 to 2001.
Poincare's Prize: The Hundred-Year Quest to Solve One of Math's Greatest Puzzles
George G. Szpiro - 2007
Amazingly, the story unveiled in it is true.In the world of math, the Poincaré 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 Poincaré 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 Poincaré sought to solve.In fact, Poincaré thought he had solved it back at the turn of the twentieth century, but soon realized his mistake. After four more years' work, he gave up. Across the generations from China to Texas, great minds stalked the solution in the wilds of higher dimensions. Among them was Grigory Perelman, a mysterious Russian who seems to have stepped out of a Dostoyevsky novel. Living in near poverty with his mother, he has refused all prizes and academic appointments, and rarely talks to anyone, including fellow mathematicians. It seemed he had lost the race in 2002, when the conjecture was widely but, again, falsely reported as solved. A year later, Perelman dropped three papers onto the Internet that not only proved the Poincaré Conjecture but enlightened the universe of higher dimensions, solving an array of even more mind-bending math with implications that will take an age to unravel. After years of review, his proof has just won him a Fields Medal--the 'Nobel of math'--awarded only once every four years. With no interest in fame, he refused to attend the ceremony, did not accept the medal, and stayed home to watch television.Perelman is a St. Petersburg hero, devoted to an ascetic life of the mind. The story of the enigma in the shape of space that he cracked is part history, part math, and a fascinating tale of the most abstract kind of creativity.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. Fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach. With The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of “normal science,” as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age. This new edition of Kuhn’s essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science.
Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension
Michio Kaku - 1994
Indeed, many physicists today believe that there are other dimensions beyond the four of our space-time, and that a unified vision of the various forces of nature can be achieved, if we consider that everything we see around us, from the trees to the stars are nothing but vibrations in hyperspace. Hyperspace theory - and its more recent derivation, superstring theory - is the eye of this revolution. In this book, Michio Kaku shows us a fascinating panorama, which completely changes our view of the cosmos, and takes us on a dazzling journey through new dimensions: wormholes connecting parallel universes, time machines, "baby universes" and more. Similar wonders are emerging in some pages in which everything is explained with elegant simplicity and where the mathematical formulation is replaced by imaginative illustrations that allow the problems to be visualized. The result is a very entertaining and surprising book, which even leaves behind the greatest fantasies of the old science fiction authors.
Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course
Bernard Kolman - 1988
Calculus is not a prerequisite, although examples and exercises using very basic calculus are included (labeled Calculus Required.) The most technology-friendly text on the market, Introductory Linear Algebra is also the most flexible. By omitting certain sections, instructors can cover the essentials of linear algebra (including eigenvalues and eigenvectors), to show how the computer is used, and to introduce applications of linear algebra in a one-semester course.
The Principles of Quantum Mechanics
Paul A.M. Dirac - 1958
No graduate student of quantum theory should leave it unread"--W.C Schieve, University of Texas
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
Brian Greene - 1999
Brian Greene, one of the world's leading string theorists, peels away the layers of mystery surrounding string theory to reveal a universe that consists of eleven dimensions, where the fabric of space tears and repairs itself, and all matter—from the smallest quarks to the most gargantuan supernovas—is generated by the vibrations of microscopically tiny loops of energy.Today physicists and mathematicians throughout the world are feverishly working on one of the most ambitious theories ever proposed: superstring theory. String theory, as it is often called, is the key to the Unified Field Theory that eluded Einstein for more than thirty years. Finally, the century-old antagonism between the large and the small-General Relativity and Quantum Theory-is resolved. String theory proclaims that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe, from the frantic dancing of subatomic quarks to the majestic swirling of heavenly galaxies, are reflections of one grand physical principle and manifestations of one single entity: microscopically tiny vibrating loops of energy, a billionth of a billionth the size of an atom. In this brilliantly articulated and refreshingly clear book, Greene relates the scientific story and the human struggle behind twentieth-century physics' search for a theory of everything.Through the masterful use of metaphor and analogy, The Elegant Universe makes some of the most sophisticated concepts ever contemplated viscerally accessible and thoroughly entertaining, bringing us closer than ever to understanding how the universe works.
Fractals
John P. Briggs - 1992
Describes how fractals were discovered, explains their unique properties, and discusses the mathematical foundation of fractals.
The Universe in Zero Words: The Story of Mathematics as Told Through Equations
Dana Mackenzie - 2012
Dana Mackenzie starts from the opposite premise: He celebrates equations. No history of art would be complete without pictures. Why, then, should a history of mathematics -- the universal language of science -- keep the masterpieces of the subject hidden behind a veil?"The Universe in Zero Words" tells the history of twenty-four great and beautiful equations that have shaped mathematics, science, and society -- from the elementary (1+1 = 2) to the sophisticated (the Black-Scholes formula for financial derivatives), and from the famous (E = mc^2) to the arcane (Hamilton's quaternion equations). Mackenzie, who has been called a "popular-science ace" by Booklist magazine, lucidly explains what each equation means, who discovered it (and how), and how it has affected our lives.(From the jacket copy.)Note: The Princeton University Press version (black cover) is for sale in the English-speaking world outside Australia. The Newsouth Press version (blue cover) is for sale in Australia. The two versions are identical except for the covers.
Div, Grad, Curl, and All That: An Informal Text on Vector Calculus
Harry M. Schey - 1973
Since the publication of the First Edition over thirty years ago, Div, Grad, Curl, and All That has been widely renowned for its clear and concise coverage of vector calculus, helping science and engineering students gain a thorough understanding of gradient, curl, and Laplacian operators without required knowledge of advanced mathematics.
Science and Hypothesis
Henri Poincaré - 1902
Explaining how such basic concepts as number and magnitude, space and force were developed, the great French mathematician refutes the skeptical position that modern scientific method and its results are wholly factitious. The places of rigorous logic and intuitive leaps are both established by an analysis of contrasting methods of idea-creation in individuals and in modern scientific traditions. The nature of hypothesis and the role of probability are investigated with all of Poincaré's usual fertility of insight.Partial contents: On the nature of mathematical reasoning. Magnitude and experiment. Space: non-Euclidean geometrics, space and geometry, experiment and geometry. Force: classical mechanics, relative and absolute motion, energy and thermodynamics. Nature: hypotheses in physics, the theories of modern physics, the calculus of probabilities, optics and electricity, electro-dynamics."Poincaré's was the last man to take practically all mathematics, both pure and applied as his province. Few mathematicians have had the breadth of philosophic vision that Poincaré's had, and none is his superior in the gift of clear exposition." — Men of Mathematics, Eric Temple Bell, Professor of Mathematics, University of Cambridge
Mental Math: Tricks To Become A Human Calculator
Abhishek V.R. - 2017
Just read this till the end You don’t have to buy this book. Just read this till end & you will learn something that will change the way you do math forever. Warning: I am revealing this secret only to the first set of readers who will buy this book & plan to put this secret back inside the book once I have enough sales. So read this until the very end while you still can.School taught you the wrong way to do mathThe way you were taught to do math, uses a lot of working memory. Working memory is the short term memory used to complete a mental task. You struggle because trying to do mental math the way you were taught in school, overloads your working memory. Let me show you what I mean with an example:Try to multiply the 73201 x 3. To do this you multiply the following:1 x 3 =0 x 3 =2 x 3 =3 x 3 =7 x 3 =This wasn’t hard, & it might have taken you just seconds to multiply the individual numbers. However, to get the final answer, you need to remember every single digit you calculated to put them back together. It takes effort to get the answer because you spend time trying to recall the numbers you already calculated. Math would be easier to do in your head if you didn’t have to remember so many numbers. Imagine when you tried to multiply 73201 x 3, if you could have come up with the answer, in the time it took you to multiply the individual numbers. Wouldn’t you have solved the problem faster than the time it would have taken you to punch in the numbers inside a calculator? Do the opposite of what you were taught in schoolThe secret of doing mental math is to calculate from left to right instead of from right to left. This is the opposite of what you were taught in school. This works so well because it frees your working memory almost completely. It is called the LR Method where LR stands for Left to Right.Lets try to do the earlier example where we multiplied 73201 x 3. This time multiply from left to right, so we get:7 x 3 = 213 x 3 = 93 x 2 = 60 x 3 = 03 x 1 = 3Notice that you started to call out the answer before you even finished the whole multiplication problem. You don’t have to remember a thing to recall & use later. So you end up doing math a lot faster. The Smart ChoiceYou could use what you learnt & apply it to solve math in the future. This might not be easy, because we just scratched the surface. I've already done the work for you. Why try to reinvent the wheel, when there is already a proven & tested system you can immediately apply. This book was first available in video format & has helped 10,000+ students from 132 countries. It is available at ofpad.com/mathcourse to enroll. This book was written to reach students who consume the information in text format. You can use the simple techniques in this book to do math faster than a calculator effortlessly in your head, even if you have no aptitude for math to begin with.Imagine waking up tomorrow being able to do lightning fast math in your head. Your family & friends will look at you like you are some kind of a genius. Since calculations are done in your head, you will acquire better mental habits in the process. So you will not just look like a genius. You will actually be one. Limited Time BonusWeekly training delivered through email for $97 is available for free as a bonus at the end of this book for the first set of readers. Once we have enough readers, this bonus will be charged $97. Why Price Is So LowThis book is priced at a ridiculous discount only to get our first set of readers. When we have enough readers the price will go up.
The Magic of Math: Solving for X and Figuring Out Why
Arthur T. Benjamin - 2015
joyfully shows you how to make nature's numbers dance."--Bill Nye (the science guy)The Magic of Math is the math book you wish you had in school. Using a delightful assortment of examples-from ice-cream scoops and poker hands to measuring mountains and making magic squares-this book revels in key mathematical fields including arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and calculus, plus Fibonacci numbers, infinity, and, of course, mathematical magic tricks. Known throughout the world as the "mathemagician," Arthur Benjamin mixes mathematics and magic to make the subject fun, attractive, and easy to understand for math fan and math-phobic alike."A positively joyful exploration of mathematics."-Publishers Weekly, starred review"Each [trick] is more dazzling than the last."-Physics World