Based on her work at the Santa Fe Institute and drawing on its interdisciplinary strategies, Mitchell brings clarity to the workings of complexity across a broad range of biological, technological, and social phenomena, seeking out the general principles or laws that apply to all of them. Richly illustrated, Complexity: A Guided Tour--winner of the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science--offers a wide-ranging overview of the ideas underlying complex systems science, the current research at the forefront of this field, and the prospects for its contribution to solving some of the most important scientific questions of our time.

    Pose the same question to students and many will use words like "boring", "useless", and even "humiliating". In  Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had , author Tracy Zager helps teachers close this gap by making math class more like mathematics. Tracy has spent years working with highly skilled math teachers in a diverse range of settings and grades. You'll find this book jam-packed with new ideas from these vibrant classrooms.  How to Teach Student-Centered Mathematics: Zager outlines a problem-solving approach to mathematics for elementary and middle school educators looking for new ways to inspire student learningBig Ideas, Practical Application: This math book contains dozens of practical and accessible teaching techniques that focus on fundamental math concepts, including strategies that simulate connection of big ideas; rich tasks that encourage students to wonder, generalize, hypothesize, and persevere; and routines to teach students how to collaborateKey Topics for Elementary and Middle School Teachers:  Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had  offers fresh perspectives on common challenges, from formative assessment to classroom management for elementary and middle school teachersAll teachers can move towards increasingly authentic and delightful mathematics teaching and learning. This important book helps develop instructional techniques that will make the math classes we teach so much better than the math classes we took.

    It was studied from antiquity to the Renaissance as a way of glimpsing the nature of reality. Geometry is number in space; music is number in time; and comology expresses number in space and time. Number, music, and geometry are metaphysical truths: life across the universe investigates them; they foreshadow the physical sciences.Quadrivium is the first volume to bring together these four subjects in many hundreds of years. Composed of six successful titles in the Wooden Books series-Sacred Geometry, Sacred Number, Harmonograph, The Elements of Music, Platonic & Archimedean Solids, and A Little Book of Coincidence-it makes ancient wisdom and its astonishing interconnectedness accessible to us today.Beautifully produced in six different colors of ink, Quadrivium will appeal to anyone interested in mathematics, music, astronomy, and how the universe works.

    "More concretely," the authors explain, "it is the controlled manipulation of mathematical formulas, using a collection of techniques for solving problems."

    Collected here to keep your wits sharp, The Best Brain Teasers of All Time features the cleverest brain teasers from around the world and throughout history.The Best Brain Teasers of All Time gives you hours of fun-filled entertainment with brain teasers that develop your problem-solving skills in math, logic, and wordplay. Organized as an integrated challenge, these brain teasers build in momentum as they increase in difficulty from classic nursery rhymes to the riddle of the sphinx.The Best Brain Teasers of All Time puts your mind to the test with: 125 Brain Teasers that require no special skills to solve. Plus, each question comes with an optional clue in case you get stumped and a handy answer key in the back to test yourself or play with friends Brain Teasers for Every Level that cater to beginners and advanced masterminds alike, with brain teasers organized by level of difficulty to improve your skills as you move forward Hints of History that provide fun facts and background information for every brain teaser Get ready to sharpen your wit with every “aha” moment. The Best Brain Teasers of All Time is a go-to source for timeless fun and mind-blowing challenges.

    What began more than sixty years ago as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, in 1944, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences.This sixtieth anniversary edition includes not only the original text but also an introduction by Harold Kuhn, an afterword by Ariel Rubinstein, and reviews and articles on the book that appeared at the time of its original publication in the New York Times, tthe American Economic Review, and a variety of other publications. Together, these writings provide readers a matchless opportunity to more fully appreciate a work whose influence will yet resound for generations to come.

    Your guide to a higher math score on standardized tests*SATACT(R)ASVABGMAT(R)GRE(R)CBEST(R)PRAXIS I(R)GED(R) And More!Why CliffsNotes?Go with the name you know and trustGet the information you need-fast!About the Contents:IntroductionHow to use this bookOverview of the examsPart I: Basic Skills ReviewArithmetic and Data AnalysisAlgebraPart II: Strategies and PracticeMathematical AbilityQuantitative ComparisonData SufficiencyEach section includes a diagnostic test, explanations of rules, concepts withexamples, practice problems with complete explanations, a review test, and aglossary!Test-Prep Essentials from the Experts at CliffsNotes(R)For more test-prep help, visit CliffsNotes.com(R)*SAT is a registered trademark of the College Board, which was not involved inthe production of, and does not endorse, this product.

    Now, in The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel, William Goldbloom Bloch takes readers on a fascinating tour of the mathematical ideas hiddenwithin one of the classic works of modern literature.Written in the vein of Douglas R. Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize-winning G�del, Escher, Bach, this original and imaginative book sheds light on one of Borges' most complex, richly layered works. Bloch begins each chapter with a mathematical idea--combinatorics, topology, geometry, informationtheory--followed by examples and illustrations that put flesh on the theoretical bones. In this way, he provides many fascinating insights into Borges' Library. He explains, for instance, a straightforward way to calculate how many books are in the Library--an easily notated but literallyunimaginable number--and also shows that, if each book were the size of a grain of sand, the entire universe could only hold a fraction of the books in the Library. Indeed, if each book were the size of a proton, our universe would still not be big enough to hold anywhere near all the books.Given Borges' well-known affection for mathematics, this exploration of the story through the eyes of a humanistic mathematician makes a unique and important contribution to the body of Borgesian criticism. Bloch not only illuminates one of the great short stories of modern literature but alsoexposes the reader--including those more inclined to the literary world--to many intriguing and entrancing mathematical ideas.

    Illustrations.

    Call it the algebra oracle: By plugging in the right variables, GEEK LOGIK answers life’s most persistent questions. It covers Dating and Romance, Career and Finance, and everyday decisions like Should I get a tattoo? Can I still wear tight jeans? Is it time to see a therapist? How many beers should I have at the company picnic? How does it work? Take a simple issue that comes up once or twice a week: Should I call in sick? Fill in the variables honestly, such as D for doctor’s note (enter 1 for “no,†10 for “yes,†and 5 for “yes, but it’s a forgeryâ€), R for importance of job (1-10, with 10 being “personally responsible for Earth’s orbit around Sunâ€), Fj for how much fun you have at work (1-10, with 10 being “personal trainer for underwear modelsâ€), N for how much you need the money (1-10, with 10 being “I owe the mobâ€), then do the math, and voilà—if the product, Hooky, is greater than 1, enjoy your very own Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Includes a pocket calculator so that prospective geeks can immediately solve the equation on the back cover: Should I buy this book?

    Written by the 19th-century mathematician who also gave us "Alive in Wonderland", they are among the most entertaining logical works ever written, and contain some of the most thought-provoking puzzles ever devised.

    a personal confession of its creator and a kind of involuntary and unperceived memoir.". Stewart affirms this maxim in his colorful reinterpretation of the lives and works of 17th-century philosophers Spinoza and Leibniz. In November 1676, the foppish courtier Leibniz, "the ultimate insider... an orthodox Lutheran from conservative Germany," journeyed to The Hague to visit the self-sufficient, freethinking Spinoza, "a double exile... an apostate Jew from licentious Holland." A prodigious polymath, Leibniz understood Spinoza's insight that "science was in the process of rendering the God of revelation obsolete; that it had already undermined the special place of the human individual in nature." Spinoza embraced this new world. Seeing the orthodox God as a "prop for theocratic tyranny," he articulated the basic theory for the modern secular state. Leibniz, on the other hand, spent the rest of his life championing God and theocracy like a defense lawyer defending a client he knows is guilty. He elaborated a metaphysics that was, at bottom, a reaction to Spinoza and collapses into Spinozism, as Stewart deftly shows. For Stewart, Leibniz's reaction to Spinoza and modernity set the tone for "the dominant form of modern philosophy"—a category that includes Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Heidegger and "the whole 'postmodern' project of deconstructing the phallogocentric tradition of western thought." Readers of philosophy may find much to disagree with in these arguments, but Stewart's wit and profluent prose make this book a fascinating read.

    Practical Algebra is an easy andfun-to-use workout program that quickly puts you in command of allthe basic concepts and tools of algebra. With the aid of practical, real-life examples and applications, you'll learn: * The basic approach and application of algebra to problemsolving * The number system (in a much broader way than you have known itfrom arithmetic) * Monomials and polynomials; factoring algebraic expressions; howto handle algebraic fractions; exponents, roots, and radicals;linear and fractional equations * Functions and graphs; quadratic equations; inequalities; ratio, proportion, and variation; how to solve word problems, andmore Authors Peter Selby and Steve Slavin emphasize practical algebrathroughout by providing you with techniques for solving problems ina wide range of disciplines--from engineering, biology, chemistry, and the physical sciences, to psychology and even sociology andbusiness administration. Step by step, Practical Algebra shows youhow to solve algebraic problems in each of these areas, then allowsyou to tackle similar problems on your own, at your own pace.Self-tests are provided at the end of each chapter so you canmeasure your mastery.

    The authors are well-known for their clear presentation that makes the material accessible to a a broad audience and requires no special previous mathematical experience. KEY TOPICS: In this new edition, the authors incorporate a somewhat more informal, friendly writing style to present both classical and contemporary theories of computation. Algorithms, complexity analysis, and algorithmic ideas are introduced informally in Chapter 1, and are pursued throughout the book. Each section is followed by problems.

    . . a most valuable contribution." — Douglas R. Hofstadter, author of Gödel, Escher, BachThe foundations of game theory were laid by John von Neumann, who in 1928 proved the basic minimax theorem, and with the 1944 publication of the Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, the field was established. Since then, game theory has become an enormously important discipline because of its novel mathematical properties and its many applications to social, economic, and political problems.Game theory has been used to make investment decisions, pick jurors, commit tanks to battle, allocate business expenses equitably — even to measure a senator's power, among many other uses. In this revised edition of his highly regarded work, Morton Davis begins with an overview of game theory, then discusses the two-person zero-sum game with equilibrium points; the general, two-person zero-sum game; utility theory; the two-person, non-zero-sum game; and the n-person game.A number of problems are posed at the start of each chapter and readers are given a chance to solve them before moving on. (Unlike most mathematical problems, many problems in game theory are easily understood by the lay reader.) At the end of the chapter, where solutions are discussed, readers can compare their "common sense" solutions with those of the author. Brimming with applications to an enormous variety of everyday situations, this book offers readers a fascinating, accessible introduction to one of the most fruitful and interesting intellectual systems of our time.