The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.

    Over 100 problems at ends of chapters. Answers in back of book. 1962 edition.

    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.

    Having just completed his masterpiece, The General Theory of Relativity—which provided a brand-new theory of gravity and promised a new perspective on the cosmos as a whole—he set out at once to share his excitement with as wide a public as possible in this popular and accessible book.Here published for the first time as a Penguin Classic, this edition of Relativity features a new introduction by bestselling science author Nigel Calder.

    But the dot, though perfect in every way, only had eyes for a wild and unkempt squiggle. All of the line's romantic dreams were in vain, until he discovered...angles! Now, with newfound self-expression, he can be anything he wants to be--a square, a triangle, a parallelogram....And that's just the beginning!First published in 1963 and made into an Academy Award-winning animated short film, here is a supremely witty love story with a twist that reveals profound truths about relationships--both human and mathematical--sure to tickle lovers of all ages.

    Starting with the fundamentals, it describes the most advanced features of the most advanced language: Common Lisp. Only the top percentile of programmers use lisp and if you can understand this book you are in the top percentile of lisp programmers. If you are looking for a dry coding manual that re-hashes common-sense techniques in whatever langue du jour, this book is not for you. This book is about pushing the boundaries of what we know about programming. While this book teaches useful skills that can help solve your programming problems today and now, it has also been designed to be entertaining and inspiring. If you have ever wondered what lisp or even programming itself is really about, this is the book you have been looking for.

    The Calculus Lifesaver provides students with the essential tools they need not only to learn calculus, but to excel at it.All of the material in this user-friendly study guide has been proven to get results. The book arose from Adrian Banner's popular calculus review course at Princeton University, which he developed especially for students who are motivated to earn A's but get only average grades on exams. The complete course will be available for free on the Web in a series of videotaped lectures. This study guide works as a supplement to any single-variable calculus course or textbook. Coupled with a selection of exercises, the book can also be used as a textbook in its own right. The style is informal, non-intimidating, and even entertaining, without sacrificing comprehensiveness. The author elaborates standard course material with scores of detailed examples that treat the reader to an inner monologue--the train of thought students should be following in order to solve the problem--providing the necessary reasoning as well as the solution. The book's emphasis is on building problem-solving skills. Examples range from easy to difficult and illustrate the in-depth presentation of theory.The Calculus Lifesaver combines ease of use and readability with the depth of content and mathematical rigor of the best calculus textbooks. It is an indispensable volume for any student seeking to master calculus.Serves as a companion to any single-variable calculus textbookInformal, entertaining, and not intimidatingInformative videos that follow the book--a full forty-eight hours of Banner's Princeton calculus-review course--is available at Adrian Banner lecturesMore than 475 examples (ranging from easy to hard) provide step-by-step reasoningTheorems and methods justified and connections made to actual practiceDifficult topics such as improper integrals and infinite series covered in detailTried and tested by students taking freshman calculus

    Petr Beckmann holds up this mirror, giving the background of the times when pi made progress -- and also when it did not, because science was being stifled by militarism or religious fanaticism.

    KEY TOPICS: This classic book enables readers to make connections between classical and modern physics - an indispensable part of a physicist's education. In this new edition, Beams Medal winner Charles Poole and John Safko have updated the book to include the latest topics, applications, and notation, to reflect today's physics curriculum. They introduce readers to the increasingly important role that nonlinearities play in contemporary applications of classical mechanics. New numerical exercises help readers to develop skills in how to use computer techniques to solve problems in physics. Mathematical techniques are presented in detail so that the book remains fully accessible to readers who have not had an intermediate course in classical mechanics. MARKET: For college instructors and students.

    Alternating passages of extraordinarily lucid mathematical exposition with chapters of elegantly composed biography and history, Prime Obsession is a fascinating and fluent account of an epic mathematical mystery that continues to challenge and excite the world.

    The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile,and The Bed of Procrustes.

    It requires, in short, an understanding of probability. In this Very Short Introduction, John Haigh introduces the ideas of probability--and the different philosophical approaches to probability--and gives a brief account of the history of development of probability theory, from Galileo and Pascal to Bayes, Laplace, Poisson, and Markov. He describes the basic probability distributions and discusses a wide range of applications in science, economics, and a variety of other contexts such as games and betting. He concludes with an intriguing discussion of coincidences and some curious paradoxes.

    Imagine that you face three doors, behind one of which is a prize. You choose one but do not open it. The host--call him Monty Hall--opens a different door, alwayschoosing one he knows to be empty. Left with two doors, will you do better by sticking with your first choice, or by switching to the other remaining door? In this light-hearted yet ultimately serious book, Jason Rosenhouse explores the history of this fascinating puzzle. Using a minimum ofmathematics (and none at all for much of the book), he shows how the problem has fascinated philosophers, psychologists, and many others, and examines the many variations that have appeared over the years. As Rosenhouse demonstrates, the Monty Hall Problem illuminates fundamental mathematical issuesand has abiding philosophical implications. Perhaps most important, he writes, the problem opens a window on our cognitive difficulties in reasoning about uncertainty.

    Readerswill find information on frequency distributions; mean, median, and mode; range, variance, and standard deviation;probability; and more.-Emphasizes Microsoft Excel for number-crunching and computationsDownload a sample chapter.

    Now he brings his considerable talents to the history of one of math's most enduring puzzles: the seemingly paradoxical nature of infinity.Is infinity a valid mathematical property or a meaningless abstraction? The nineteenth-century mathematical genius Georg Cantor's answer to this question not only surprised him but also shook the very foundations upon which math had been built. Cantor's counterintuitive discovery of a progression of larger and larger infinities created controversy in his time and may have hastened his mental breakdown, but it also helped lead to the development of set theory, analytic philosophy, and even computer technology.Smart, challenging, and thoroughly rewarding, Wallace's tour de force brings immediate and high-profile recognition to the bizarre and fascinating world of higher mathematics.