Philosophy of mathematics

Here is the updated essential guide to mathematics, an authoritative reference book and timeline that explores the work of history's greatest mathematicians. These include the teasing genius of Pierre de Fermat, who said he knew the answers but rarely...

How playwrights from Alfred Jarry and Samuel Beckett to Tom Stoppard and Simon McBurney brought the power of abstract mathematics to the human stage.The discovery of alternate geometries, paradoxes of the infinite, incompleteness, and chaos theory...

'The story I'll tell here is about the evolution of the way we humans record and make sense of all the data that swirl around us...'Vector takes readers on an extraordinary 5000-year journey through the human imagination. The stars of this book, vectors...

An entertaining and enlightening history of irrational numbers, from ancient Greece to the twenty-first century.The ancient Greeks discovered them, but it wasn't until the nineteenth century that irrational numbers were properly understood and...

There is a wonderfully weird but real world out there, and we are a part of it. It is time for physics to take life seriously.Can we ever truly comprehend the universe before we fully understand consciousness and the wonders, and limits, of the mind? Ulf...

Now Pappas has done it again, or rather, has done more! The pages of MORE JOY OF MATHEMATICS spill over with ideas, puzzles, games from all over the world, historic background, exciting graphics and up-to-the-minute math breakthrough. Readers will find...

Part of the joy of mathematics is that it is everywhere-in soap bubbles, electricity, da Vinci's masterpieces, even in an ocean wave. Written by the well-known mathematics teacher consultant, this volume's collection of over 200 clearly illustrated...

How the concept of proof has enabled the creation of mathematical knowledge.The Story of Proof investigates the evolution of the concept of proof - one of the most significant and defining features of mathematical thought - through critical episodes in...

A survey of ancient Egyptian mathematics across three thousand years Mathematics in Ancient Egypt traces the development of Egyptian mathematics, from the end of the fourth millennium BC-and the earliest hints of writing and number notation - to...

An essential work on the origins of statistics.The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 18201900 explores the history of statistics from the field's origins in the nineteenth century through to the factors that produced the burst of modern...

A fascinating exploration of the pentagon and its role in various culturesThe pentagon and its close cousin, the pentagram, have inspired individuals for the last two and half millennia, from mathematicians and philosophers to artists and naturalists...

A fascinating account of the breakthrough ideas that transformed probability and statisticsIn the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gamblers and mathematicians transformed the idea of chance from a mystery into the discipline of probability, setting...

A comprehensive look at four of the most famous problems in mathematics. Tales of Impossibility recounts the intriguing story of the renowned problems of antiquity, four of the most famous and studied questions in the history of mathematics. First posed...

The legendary Renaissance math duel that ushered in the modern age of algebraThe Secret Formula tells the story of two Renaissance mathematicians whose jealousies, intrigues, and contentious debates led to the discovery of a formula for the solution of...

The Greco-Roman mathematician Claudius Ptolemy is one of the most significant figures in the history of science. He is remembered today for his astronomy, but his philosophy is almost entirely lost to history. This groundbreaking book is the first to...

This book presents reverse mathematics to a general mathematical audience for the first time. Reverse mathematics is a new field that answers some old questions. In the two thousand years that mathematicians have been deriving theorems from axioms, it...

How music has influenced mathematics, physics, and astronomy from ancient Greece to the twentieth centuryMusic is filled with mathematical elements, the works of Bach are often said to possess a math-like logic, and Igor Stravinsky said "musical form is...

A book that finally demystifies Newton's experiments in alchemyWhen Isaac Newton's alchemical papers surfaced at a Sotheby's auction in 1936, the quantity and seeming incoherence of the manuscripts were shocking. No longer the exemplar of Enlightenment...

A lively and engaging look at logic puzzles and their role in recreation, mathematics, and philosophy.Logic puzzles were first introduced to the public by Lewis Carroll in the late nineteenth century and have been popular ever since. Games like Sudoku...

The history of mathematics is filled with major breakthroughs resulting from solutions to recreational problems. Problems of interest to gamblers led to the modern theory of probability, for example, and surreal numbers were inspired by the game of Go...