As teen math prodigy Agnijo Banerjee and his teacher David Darling reveal, complex math surrounds us. If we think long enough about the universe, we're left not with material stuff, but a ghostly and beautiful set of equations. Packed with puzzles and paradoxes, mind-bending concepts, and surprising solutions, Weird Math leads us from a lyrical exploration of mathematics in our universe to profound questions about God, chance, and infinity. A magical introduction to the mysteries of math, it will entrance beginners and seasoned mathematicians alike.

    The absence of a book, explaining the techniques in a simple language, has been felt acutely for a long time. This book has been written using a step-by-step approach, and attempts to fill the existing void. It includes several solved problems in addition to 1000 practice problems with answers. It also includes a special chapter which shows the application of the techniques to problems set in competitive exams like CAT, CET etc.People from all walks of life including school and college students, teachers, parents and also those from non-mathematical areas of study will discover the joys of solving mathematical problems using the wonderful set of techniques called Vedic Maths.

    

    An extremely clever account.--The New Yorker.

    Inside PFTB (Proofs from The Book) is indeed a glimpse of mathematical heaven, where clever insights and beautiful ideas combine in astonishing and glorious ways. There is vast wealth within its pages, one gem after another. Some of the proofs are classics, but many are new and brilliant proofs of classical results. ...Aigner and Ziegler... write: ..". all we offer is the examples that we have selected, hoping that our readers will share our enthusiasm about brilliant ideas, clever insights and wonderful observations." I do. ... " Notices of the AMS, August 1999..". the style is clear and entertaining, the level is close to elementary ... and the proofs are brilliant. ..." LMS Newsletter, January 1999This third edition offers two new chapters, on partition identities, and on card shuffling. Three proofs of Euler's most famous infinite series appear in a separate chapter. There is also a number of other improvements, such as an exciting new way to "enumerate the rationals."

    This gorgeous book features clear, entertaining, and enlightening commentary alongside stunning full-color illustrations by Venezuelan artist and architect Rafael Araujo. From the pyramids of Giza, to quasicrystals, to the proportions of the human face, the golden ratio has an infinite capacity to generate shapes with exquisite properties.  With its lush format and layflat dimensions that closely approximate the golden ratio, this is the ultimate coffee table book for math enthusiasts, architects, designers, and fans of sacred geometry.

    Traditional mathematics teaching is largely about solving exactly stated problems exactly, yet life often hands us partly defined problems needing only moderately accurate solutions. This engaging book is an antidote to the rigor mortis brought on by too much mathematical rigor, teaching us how to guess answers without needing a proof or an exact calculation.In Street-Fighting Mathematics, Sanjoy Mahajan builds, sharpens, and demonstrates tools for educated guessing and down-and-dirty, opportunistic problem solving across diverse fields of knowledge--from mathematics to management. Mahajan describes six tools: dimensional analysis, easy cases, lumping, picture proofs, successive approximation, and reasoning by analogy. Illustrating each tool with numerous examples, he carefully separates the tool--the general principle--from the particular application so that the reader can most easily grasp the tool itself to use on problems of particular interest. Street-Fighting Mathematics grew out of a short course taught by the author at MIT for students ranging from first-year undergraduates to graduate students ready for careers in physics, mathematics, management, electrical engineering, computer science, and biology. They benefited from an approach that avoided rigor and taught them how to use mathematics to solve real problems.Street-Fighting Mathematics will appear in print and online under a Creative Commons Noncommercial Share Alike license.

    A lecture class taught by Wittgenstein, however, hardly resembled a lecture. He sat on a chair in the middle of the room, with some of the class sitting in chairs, some on the floor. He never used notes. He paused frequently, sometimes for several minutes, while he puzzled out a problem. He often asked his listeners questions and reacted to their replies. Many meetings were largely conversation. These lectures were attended by, among others, D. A. T. Gasking, J. N. Findlay, Stephen Toulmin, Alan Turing, G. H. von Wright, R. G. Bosanquet, Norman Malcolm, Rush Rhees, and Yorick Smythies. Notes taken by these last four are the basis for the thirty-one lectures in this book. The lectures covered such topics as the nature of mathematics, the distinctions between mathematical and everyday languages, the truth of mathematical propositions, consistency and contradiction in formal systems, the logicism of Frege and Russell, Platonism, identity, negation, and necessary truth. The mathematical examples used are nearly always elementary.

    Contains complete worked solutions to all regular exercises and computer exercises in the text; additional test questions and their solutions; an online laboratory manual for the computer algebra system GAP, with exercises tied to the book and an instructor answer key; and links on the author's website to true/false questions, flash cards, essays, software downloads, and other abstract algebra-related materials.

    In A Brief History of Mathematical Thought, Luke Heaton explores how the language of mathematics has evolved over time, enabling new technologies and shaping the way people think. From stone-age rituals to algebra, calculus, and the concept of computation, Heaton shows the enormous influence of mathematics on science, philosophy and the broader human story. The book traces the fascinating history of mathematical practice, focusing on the impact of key conceptual innovations. Its structure of thirteen chapters split between four sections is dictated by a combination of historical and thematic considerations. In the first section, Heaton illuminates the fundamental concept of number. He begins with a speculative and rhetorical account of prehistoric rituals, before describing the practice of mathematics in Ancient Egypt, Babylon and Greece. He then examines the relationship between counting and the continuum of measurement, and explains how the rise of algebra has dramatically transformed our world. In the second section, he explores the origins of calculus and the conceptual shift that accompanied the birth of non-Euclidean geometries. In the third section, he examines the concept of the infinite and the fundamentals of formal logic. Finally, in section four, he considers the limits of formal proof, and the critical role of mathematics in our ongoing attempts to comprehend the world around us. The story of mathematics is fascinating in its own right, but Heaton does more than simply outline a history of mathematical ideas. More importantly, he shows clearly how the history and philosophy of maths provides an invaluable perspective on human nature.

    From man's first act of counting to higher mathematics, from the smallest living creature to the dazzling reaches of outer space, Asimov is a master at "explaining complex material better than any other living person." (The New York Times) You'll learn: HOW to make a trillion seem small; WHY imaginary numbers are real; THE real size of the universe - in photons; WHY the zero isn't "good for nothing;" AND many other marvelous discoveries, in ASIMOV ON NUMBERS.

    Reveals mathematics' great power as an alternative language for understanding things and explores such concepts as logic as a computing tool, digital versus analog processes and communication as information transmission.

    By introducing us to the major characters and leading us through many historical twists and turns, Johnny slowly unravels the tale of how humanity built up a knowledge and understanding of shapes, numbers and patterns from ancient times, a story that leads directly to the technological wonderland we live in today. As Galileo said, 'Everything in the universe is written in the language of mathematics', and Wonders Beyond Numbers is your guide to this language.Mathematics is only one part of this rich and varied tale; we meet many fascinating personalities along the way, such as a mathematician who everyone has heard of but who may not have existed; a Greek philosopher who made so many mistakes that many wanted his books destroyed; a mathematical artist who built the largest masonry dome on earth, which builders had previously declared impossible; a world-renowned painter who discovered mathematics and decided he could no longer stand the sight of a brush; and a philosopher who lost his head, but only after he had died.Enriched with tales of colourful personalities and remarkable discoveries, there is also plenty of mathematics for keen readers to get stuck into. Written in Johnny Ball's characteristically light-hearted and engaging style, this book is packed with historical insight and mathematical marvels; join Johnny and uncover the wonders found beyond the numbers.

    This book will offer students a broad outline of essential mathematics and will help to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. The author explains the basic points and a few key results of all the most important undergraduate topics in mathematics, emphasizing the intuitions behind the subject. The topics include linear algebra, vector calculus, differential and analytical geometry, real analysis, point-set topology, probability, complex analysis, set theory, algorithms, and more. An annotated bibliography offers a guide to further reading and to more rigorous foundations.

    The Times called it elegant, discursive, and littered with quotes and allusions from Aquinas via Gershwin to Woolf and The Philadelphia Inquirer praised it as absolutely scintillating. In this delightful new book, Robert Kaplan, writing together with his wife Ellen Kaplan, once again takes us on a witty, literate, and accessible tour of the world of mathematics. Where The Nothing That Is looked at math through the lens of zero, The Art of the Infinite takes infinity, in its countless guises, as a touchstone for understanding mathematical thinking. Tracing a path from Pythagoras, whose great Theorem led inexorably to a discovery that his followers tried in vain to keep secret (the existence of irrational numbers); through Descartes and Leibniz; to the brilliant, haunted Georg Cantor, who proved that infinity can come in different sizes, the Kaplans show how the attempt to grasp the ungraspable embodies the essence of mathematics. The Kaplans guide us through the Republic of Numbers, where we meet both its upstanding citizens and more shadowy dwellers; and we travel across the plane of geometry into the unlikely realm where parallel lines meet. Along the way, deft character studies of great mathematicians (and equally colorful lesser ones) illustrate the opposed yet intertwined modes of mathematical thinking: the intutionist notion that we discover mathematical truth as it exists, and the formalist belief that math is true because we invent consistent rules for it. Less than All, wrote William Blake, cannot satisfy Man. The Art of the Infinite shows us some of the ways that Man has grappled with All, and reveals mathematics as one of the most exhilarating expressions of the human imagination.