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What would Newton see if he looked out his bedroom window? This book describes the world around the important mathematicians of the past, and explores the complex interaction between mathematics, mathematicians, and society. It takes the reader on a grand tour of history from the ancient Egyptians to the twentieth century to show how mathematicians and mathematics were affected by the outside world, and at the same time how the outside world was affected by mathematics and mathematicians. Part biography, part mathematics, and part history, this book provides the interested layperson the background to understand mathematics and the history of mathematics, and is suitable for supplemental reading in any history of mathematics course.
An inspiring collection of a historian's work on the history of mathematics.
Mathematicians have pondered the psychology of the members of our tribe probably since mathematics was invented, but for certain since Hadamard’s The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field. The editors asked two dozen prominent mathematicians (and one spouse thereof) to ruminate on what makes us different. The answers they got are thoughtful, interesting and thought-provoking. Not all respondents addressed the question directly. Michael Atiyah reflects on the tension between truth and beauty in mathematics. T.W. Körner, Alan Schoenfeld and Hyman Bass chose to write, reflectively and thoughtfully, about teaching and learning. Others, including Ian Stewart and Jane Hawkins, write about the sociology of our community. Many of the contributions range into philosophy of mathematics and the nature of our thought processes. Any mathematician will find much of interest here.
This book is written to give instructors a tool to teach students to develop a mathematical concept from first principles. The text is organized around and offers the standard topics expected in a first undergraduate course in linear algebra.
Mathematics for Social Justice: Focusing on Quantitative Reasoning and Statistics offers a collection of resources for mathematics faculty interested in incorporating questions of social justice into their classrooms. The book comprises seventeen classroom-tested modules featuring ready-to-use activities and investigations for college mathematics and statistics courses. The modules empower students to study issues of social justice and to see the power and limitations of mathematics in real-world contexts of deep concern. The primary focus is on classroom activities where students can ask their own questions, find and analyze real data, apply mathematical ideas themselves, and draw their own...
The year 2007 marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of one of the Enlightenment's most important mathematicians and scientists, Leonhard Euler. This volume is a collection of 24 essays by some of the world's best Eulerian scholars from seven different countries about Euler, his life and his work. Some of the essays are historical, including much previously unknown information about Euler's life, his activities in the St. Petersburg Academy, the influence of the Russian Princess Dashkova, and Euler's philosophy. Others describe his influence on the subsequent growth of European mathematics and physics in the 19th century. Still others give technical details of Euler's innovations in probab...
A memoir that describes the groundbreaking life and career of blind mathematician Larry Baggett, interspersed with musings on mathematics.
Sunday, February 6, 1955 It's Sunday night and Nick has decided he wants to get back in the kitchen to make a couple of pans of lasagna for dinner, something he hasn't done since he and Carter moved into the big pile of rocks on Nob Hill. Captain Daniel O'Reilly, pilot of The Flirtatious Captain, is bringing a friend for dinner. Instead of his latest love interest, the captain introduces Nick and Carter to an old friend, a man who is on his last legs and who has a favor to ask: can Nick and Carter help him get his girl and her son out of Red China? That's where things begin but it's far from where they end...
More Fallacies, Flaws, and Flimflam is the second volume of selections drawn mostly from the College Mathematics Journal column “Fallacies, Flaws, and Flimflam” from 2000 through 2008. The MAA published the first collection, Mathematical Flaws, Fallacies, and Flimflam, in 2000. As in the first volume, More Fallacies, Flaws, and Flimflam contains items ranging from howlers (outlandish procedures that nonetheless lead to a correct answer) to deep or subtle errors often made by strong students. Although some are provided for entertainment, others challenge the reader to determine exactly where things go wrong. Items are sorted by subject matter. Elementary teachers will find chapter 1 of most use, while middle and high schoolteachers will find chapters 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8 applicable to their levels. College instructors can delve for material in every part of the book. There are frequent references to the College Mathematics Journal; these are denoted by CMJ.
Sophie Germain overcame gender stigmas and a lack of formal education to prove that for all prime exponents less than 100 Case I of Fermat's Last Theorem holds. Hidden behind a man's name, her brilliance as mathematician was first discovered by three of the greatest scholars of the eighteenth century, Lagrange, Gauss, and Legendre. In Sophie's Diary, Germain comes to life through a fictionalized journal that intertwines mathematics with historical descriptions of the brutal events that took place in Paris between 1789 and 1793. This format provides a plausible perspective of how a young Sophie could have learned mathematics on her own—both fascinated by numbers and eager to master tough subjects without a teacher's guidance. Her passion for mathematics is integrated into her personal life as an escape from societal outrage. Sophie's Diary is suitable for a variety of readers—both young and old, mathematicians and novices—who will be inspired and enlightened on a field of study made easy, as told through the intellectual and personal struggles of an exceptional young woman.