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Early in his rise to enlightenment, man invented a concept that has since been variously viewed as a vice, a crime, a business, a pleasure, a type of magic, a disease, a folly, a weakness, a form of sexual substitution, an expression of the human instinct. He invented gambling. Recent advances in the field, particularly Parrondo's paradox, have triggered a surge of interest in the statistical and mathematical theory behind gambling. This interest was acknowledge in the motion picture, "21," inspired by the true story of the MIT students who mastered the art of card counting to reap millions from the Vegas casinos. Richard Epstein's classic book on gambling and its mathematical analysis cover...
A translation of the original 1986 French edition by Amy Dahan-Dalmedico and Jeanne Peiffer (both from Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris), this eminently readable book places the birth and development of mathematical activity in historical, cultural, and economic context. The book offers an outstanding account, for instance, of how Arabs preserved Greek mathematics and extended it over an 800-year period, from 400-1200. The large number of illustrations supports the text and contributes to a fine read. - Publisher.
Exquisite expositions of mathematics taken from the first ten years of the Math Horizons magazine.
Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This volume, first published in 1966, contains columns originally published from 1959-1961. This is the 1995 MAA edition and contains an extensive postscript and bibliography from Gardner updating the columns.
This revised edition of a mathematical classic originally published in 1957 will bring to a new generation of students the enjoyment of investigating that simplest of mathematical figures, the circle. The author has supplemented this new edition with a special chapter designed to introduce readers to the vocabulary of circle concepts with which the readers of two generations ago were familiar. Readers of Circles need only be armed with paper, pencil, compass, and straight edge to find great pleasure in following the constructions and theorems. Those who think that geometry using Euclidean tools died out with the ancient Greeks will be pleasantly surprised to learn many interesting results which were only discovered in modern times. Novices and experts alike will find much to enlighten them in chapters dealing with the representation of a circle by a point in three-space, a model for non-Euclidean geometry, and the isoperimetric property of the circle.
An inspiring collection of a historian's work on the history of mathematics.
This book explains the origins of over 1500 mathematical terms used in English.
Numerology is the belief that numbers have power over events. It is a descendent of number mysticism, the belief the contemplation of numbers can give mystical and non-rational insights into life, the universe, and everything. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Pythagoras originated number mysticism, crediting certain numbers with characteristics, though numerology is a more recent invention that allots numbers, hence, characteristics to individuals. Underwood Dudley outlines here the history of number mysticism and numerology and gives many examples, including biorhythyms, Bible-numberists, pyram.
This volume collects many of the columns Keith Devlin wrote for The Guardian.