Download or read book Geometry s Great Thinkers written by Bonnie Leech and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2006-08-01 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces students to both ancient and modern pioneer figures of geometry. Students are entertainingly guided through important theories and concepts integral to the use of geometry. Includes detailed background information on Pythagoras of Samos, Euclid of Alexandria, Rene Descartes, and Grace Chisholm Young. Fascinating coverage is provided on the models of the Pythagorean theorem, the basics of Euclidean geometry, and the Cartesian coordinate system.
Download or read book Philosophy of Geometry from Riemann to Poincar written by R. Torretti and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geometry has fascinated philosophers since the days of Thales and Pythagoras. In the 17th and 18th centuries it provided a paradigm of knowledge after which some thinkers tried to pattern their own metaphysical systems. But after the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries in the 19th century, the nature and scope of geometry became a bone of contention. Philosophical concern with geometry increased in the 1920's after Einstein used Riemannian geometry in his theory of gravitation. During the last fifteen or twenty years, renewed interest in the latter theory -prompted by advances in cosmology -has brought geometry once again to the forefront of philosophical discussion. The issues at stake in the current epistemological debate about geometry can only be understood in the light of history, and, in fact, most recent works on the subject include historical material. In this book, I try to give a selective critical survey of modern philosophy of geometry during its seminal period, which can be said to have begun shortly after 1850 with Riemann's generalized conception of space and to achieve some sort of completion at the turn of the century with Hilbert's axiomatics and Poincare's conventionalism. The philosophy of geometry of Einstein and his contemporaries will be the subject of another book. The book is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 provides back ground information about the history of science and philosophy.
Download or read book Euclid written by Josette Campbell and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Euclid, a Greek mathematician, flourished around 300 BCE. It was he who shaped geometry into what it is today. As a result, he became known as the father of geometry. Euclid founded his own school in Alexandria, Egypt, and gained a reputation as an exceptional geometry teacher. The Elements, his thirteen-volume treatise on mathematics and geometry, was considered to be one of the most influential mathematical works in history. Readers consider some of the definitions and postulates from this great work. They also learn about ancient Greek civilization and the renowned Greek mathematicians and philosophers who influenced Euclid's thinking.
Download or read book How Great Thinkers Transformed Our Ideas written by C C Hagan and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2024-05-08 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Dare to think!” This was the catch cry of the Enlightenment over 300 years ago when the breakaway from religion towards a more secular society began. Isaac Newton led the Scientific Revolution which transformed society for the next 300 years with progress not then dreamed of. Stephen Hawking revealed a new cosmology and linked Einstein’s relativity to small scale quantum mechanics. Yet what was the mind set of Newton’s age compared to Hawking’s age? What were the changes in the mind sets of society and philosophy during those 300 years and were they all linked to science? This book represents a slice of the history of ideas, science and philosophy mixed with their personal lives against how science, mathematics and philosophy evolved over those 300 years. Revealed are the truly astonishing stories and ideas of five of the greatest thinkers who ever lived who provided us rich insights into the cosmos. Their stories class them as true founders of scientific revolutions, battlers with feats of endurance, and triumphs to rise to great heights. Through the personal tragedies of Curie and Hawking to the intellectual battles fought by Einstein, Newton and Leibniz these five scientists inspire us and enrich our ideas.
Download or read book Sacred Geometry written by Stephen Skinner and published by Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.. This book was released on 2009 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating and inspirational look at the vital link between the hidden geometrical order of the universe, geometry in nature, and the geometry of the man-made world. The Da Vinci Code has awakened the public to the powerful and very ancient idea that religious truths and mathematical principles are intimately intertwined. Sacred Geometry offers an accessible way of understanding how that connection is revealed in nature and the arts. Over the centuries, temple builders have relied on magic numbers to shape sacred spaces, astronomers have used geometry to calculate holy seasons, and philosophers have observed the harmony of the universe in the numerical properties of music. By showing how the discoveries of mathematics are manifested over and over again in biology and physics, and how they have inspired the greatest works of art, this illuminating study reveals the universal principles that link us to the infinite.
Download or read book Developing Thinking in Geometry written by Sue Johnston-Wilder and published by Paul Chapman Educational Publishing. This book was released on 2005-09-14 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "All readers can use this book to reignite their fascination with mathematics. Fosters not only a curiosity about geometry itself but crucially focuses on how learners can actively engage in thinking about geometry and its central key ideas."-Sylvia Johnson, Professor, Sheffield Hallam University"Exudes activity and interactivity. A book for learning geometry, learning to think more deeply about geometry, and also about its teaching and learning."-David Pimm, Professor, University of AlbertaDeveloping Thinking in Geometry enables teachers and their support staff to experience and teach geometric thinking. Discussing key teaching principles, the book and its accompanying interactive CD-ROM include many activities encouraging readers to extend their own learning, and teaching practices.Drawing on innovative approaches for teaching and learning geometry developed by the Open University's Centre for Mathematics Education, this resource is constructed around the following key themes:InvarianceLanguage and points of viewReasoning using invarianceVisualizing and representing
Download or read book The Mathematician s Brain written by David Ruelle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-26 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mathematician's Brain poses a provocative question about the world's most brilliant yet eccentric mathematical minds: were they brilliant because of their eccentricities or in spite of them? In this thought-provoking and entertaining book, David Ruelle, the well-known mathematical physicist who helped create chaos theory, gives us a rare insider's account of the celebrated mathematicians he has known-their quirks, oddities, personal tragedies, bad behavior, descents into madness, tragic ends, and the sublime, inexpressible beauty of their most breathtaking mathematical discoveries. Consider the case of British mathematician Alan Turing. Credited with cracking the German Enigma code during World War II and conceiving of the modern computer, he was convicted of "gross indecency" for a homosexual affair and died in 1954 after eating a cyanide-laced apple--his death was ruled a suicide, though rumors of assassination still linger. Ruelle holds nothing back in his revealing and deeply personal reflections on Turing and other fellow mathematicians, including Alexander Grothendieck, René Thom, Bernhard Riemann, and Felix Klein. But this book is more than a mathematical tell-all. Each chapter examines an important mathematical idea and the visionary minds behind it. Ruelle meaningfully explores the philosophical issues raised by each, offering insights into the truly unique and creative ways mathematicians think and showing how the mathematical setting is most favorable for asking philosophical questions about meaning, beauty, and the nature of reality. The Mathematician's Brain takes you inside the world--and heads--of mathematicians. It's a journey you won't soon forget.
Download or read book Geometry and Monadology written by Vincenzo de Risi and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-08-08 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reconstructs, from both historical and theoretical points of view, Leibniz’s geometrical studies, focusing in particular on the research Leibniz carried out in his final years. The work’s main purpose is to offer a better understanding of the philosophy of space and in general of the mature Leibnizean metaphysics. This is the first ever, comprehensive historical reconstruction of Leibniz’s geometry.
Download or read book Geometry and the Imagination written by D. Hilbert and published by American Mathematical Soc.. This book was released on 2021-03-17 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This remarkable book has endured as a true masterpiece of mathematical exposition. There are few mathematics books that are still so widely read and continue to have so much to offer—even after more than half a century has passed! The book is overflowing with mathematical ideas, which are always explained clearly and elegantly, and above all, with penetrating insight. It is a joy to read, both for beginners and experienced mathematicians. “Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen” is full of interesting facts, many of which you wish you had known before. It's also likely that you have heard those facts before, but surely wondered where they could be found. The book begins with examples of the simplest curves and surfaces, including thread constructions of certain quadrics and other surfaces. The chapter on regular systems of points leads to the crystallographic groups and the regular polyhedra in R 3 R3. In this chapter, they also discuss plane lattices. By considering unit lattices, and throwing in a small amount of number theory when necessary, they effortlessly derive Leibniz's series: π/4=1−1/3+1/5−1/7+−… π/4=1−1/3+1/5−1/7+−…. In the section on lattices in three and more dimensions, the authors consider sphere-packing problems, including the famous Kepler problem. One of the most remarkable chapters is “Projective Configurations”. In a short introductory section, Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen give perhaps the most concise and lucid description of why a general geometer would care about projective geometry and why such an ostensibly plain setup is truly rich in structure and ideas. Here, we see regular polyhedra again, from a different perspective. One of the high points of the chapter is the discussion of Schlafli's Double-Six, which leads to the description of the 27 lines on the general smooth cubic surface. As is true throughout the book, the magnificent drawings in this chapter immeasurably help the reader. A particularly intriguing section in the chapter on differential geometry is Eleven Properties of the Sphere. Which eleven properties of such a ubiquitous mathematical object caught their discerning eye and why? Many mathematicians are familiar with the plaster models of surfaces found in many mathematics departments. The book includes pictures of some of the models that are found in the Göttingen collection. Furthermore, the mysterious lines that mark these surfaces are finally explained! The chapter on kinematics includes a nice discussion of linkages and the geometry of configurations of points and rods that are connected and, perhaps, constrained in some way. This topic in geometry has become increasingly important in recent times, especially in applications to robotics. This is another example of a simple situation that leads to a rich geometry. It would be hard to overestimate the continuing influence Hilbert-Cohn-Vossen's book has had on mathematicians of this century. It surely belongs in the “pantheon” of great mathematics books.
Download or read book The God Problem written by Howard Bloom and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 714 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God’s war crimes, Aristotle’s sneaky tricks, Einstein’s pajamas, information theory’s blind spot, Stephen Wolfram’s new kind of science, and six monkeys at six typewriters getting it wrong. What do these have to do with the birth of a universe and with your need for meaning? Everything, as you’re about to see. How does the cosmos do something it has long been thought only gods could achieve? How does an inanimate universe generate stunning new forms and unbelievable new powers without a creator? How does the cosmos create? That’s the central question of this book, which finds clues in strange places. Why A does not equal A. Why one plus one does not equal two. How the Greeks used kickballs to reinvent the universe. And the reason that Polish-born Benoît Mandelbrot—the father of fractal geometry—rebelled against his uncle. You’ll take a scientific expedition into the secret heart of a cosmos you’ve never seen. Not just any cosmos. An electrifyingly inventive cosmos. An obsessive-compulsive cosmos. A driven, ambitious cosmos. A cosmos of colossal shocks. A cosmos of screaming, stunning surprise. A cosmos that breaks five of science’s most sacred laws. Yes, five. And you’ll be rewarded with author Howard Bloom’s provocative new theory of the beginning, middle, and end of the universe—the Bloom toroidal model, also known as the big bagel theory—which explains two of the biggest mysteries in physics: dark energy and why, if antimatter and matter are created in equal amounts, there is so little antimatter in this universe. Called "truly awesome" by Nobel Prize–winner Dudley Herschbach, The God Problem will pull you in with the irresistible attraction of a black hole and spit you out again enlightened with the force of a big bang. Be prepared to have your mind blown. From the Hardcover edition.
Download or read book Vico s Axioms written by James Robert Goetsch and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to Goetsch, Vico proposes that we abandon the alliance between logic and metaphysics and instead form one between logic and the rhetorical and poetical conceptions of human understanding that inform the human community. In the way Vico revives the ancient sense of rhetoric found in Aristotle, who stated that logic and rhetoric are counterparts. Vico's philosophical system is best exemplified by the 114 axioms at the base of his New Science. These axioms, which range over a puzzling variety of subjects, do not follow a logical or geometric model in the conventional sense, making it hard to account for Vico's claim that he thinks in the "geometric manner." Goetsch asserts, however, that they are used by Vico to express what Aristotle called maxims - "thoughts worth thinking" - which establish the fundamental points necessary to speak about human realities.
Download or read book Differential Geometry Lie Groups and Symmetric Spaces written by Sigurdur Helgason and published by American Mathematical Soc.. This book was released on 2001-06-12 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great book ... a necessary item in any mathematical library. --S. S. Chern, University of California A brilliant book: rigorous, tightly organized, and covering a vast amount of good mathematics. --Barrett O'Neill, University of California This is obviously a very valuable and well thought-out book on an important subject. --Andre Weil, Institute for Advanced Study The study of homogeneous spaces provides excellent insights into both differential geometry and Lie groups. In geometry, for instance, general theorems and properties will also hold for homogeneous spaces, and will usually be easier to understand and to prove in this setting. For Lie groups, a significant amount of analysis either begins with or reduces to analysis on homogeneous spaces, frequently on symmetric spaces. For many years and for many mathematicians, Sigurdur Helgason's classic Differential Geometry, Lie Groups, and Symmetric Spaces has been--and continues to be--the standard source for this material. Helgason begins with a concise, self-contained introduction to differential geometry. Next is a careful treatment of the foundations of the theory of Lie groups, presented in a manner that since 1962 has served as a model to a number of subsequent authors. This sets the stage for the introduction and study of symmetric spaces, which form the central part of the book. The text concludes with the classification of symmetric spaces by means of the Killing-Cartan classification of simple Lie algebras over $\mathbb{C}$ and Cartan's classification of simple Lie algebras over $\mathbb{R}$, following a method of Victor Kac. The excellent exposition is supplemented by extensive collections of useful exercises at the end of each chapter. All of the problems have either solutions or substantial hints, found at the back of the book. For this edition, the author has made corrections and added helpful notes and useful references. Sigurdur Helgason was awarded the Steele Prize for Differential Geometry, Lie Groups, and Symmetric Spaces and Groups and Geometric Analysis.
Download or read book Alan Turing Life and Legacy of a Great Thinker written by Christof Teuscher and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by a distinguished cast of contributors, Alan Turing: Life and Legacy of a Great Thinker is the definitive collection of essays in commemoration of the 90th birthday of Alan Turing. This fascinating text covers the rich facets of his life, thoughts, and legacy, but also sheds some light on the future of computing science with a chapter contributed by visionary Ray Kurzweil, winner of the 1999 National Medal of Technology. Further, important contributions come from the philosopher Daniel Dennett, the Turing biographer Andrew Hodges, and from the distinguished logician Martin Davis, who provides a first critical essay on an emerging and controversial field termed "hypercomputation".
Download or read book Philosophical Geometry written by André VandenBroeck and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Philosophy of Geometry from Riemann to Poincar written by R. Torretti and published by Taylor & Francis US. This book was released on 1984-12-31 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geometry has fascinated philosophers since the days of Thales and Pythagoras. In the 17th and 18th centuries it provided a paradigm of knowledge after which some thinkers tried to pattern their own metaphysical systems. But after the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries in the 19th century, the nature and scope of geometry became a bone of contention. Philosophical concern with geometry increased in the 1920's after Einstein used Riemannian geometry in his theory of gravitation. During the last fifteen or twenty years, renewed interest in the latter theory -prompted by advances in cosmology -has brought geometry once again to the forefront of philosophical discussion. The issues at stake in the current epistemological debate about geometry can only be understood in the light of history, and, in fact, most recent works on the subject include historical material. In this book, I try to give a selective critical survey of modern philosophy of geometry during its seminal period, which can be said to have begun shortly after 1850 with Riemann's generalized conception of space and to achieve some sort of completion at the turn of the century with Hilbert's axiomatics and Poincare's conventionalism. The philosophy of geometry of Einstein and his contemporaries will be the subject of another book. The book is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 provides back ground information about the history of science and philosophy.
Download or read book Metaphor Sustainability Transformation written by Ian Hughes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an eclectic range of transdisciplinary insights into the role of metaphor, myth and fable in shaping our understanding of the world and how we interact with it and with each other. Drawing on innovative perspectives from widely different fields, this book explores how metaphor might facilitate and underpin transformative change towards environmental, ecological and societal sustainability. It illustrates the ways in which contemporary metaphors lock us into patterns of thinking, modes of behaviour, and styles of living that reproduce and accentuate our current socio-environmental problems. It sets itself the task of finding new metaphors and myths that might help move us towards sustainability as societal flourishing. By examining the use of metaphor in diverse fields such as energy use, the food system, health care, arts and the humanities, it invites the reader to reflect on the deep-seated influence of language in general, and metaphor in particular, in shaping how we understand and act upon the world. Re-imagining the use of language in framing both the problems we face and the solutions we devise, this novel contribution is a vital source of ideas for those aiming to change how we think and act in pursuit of more sustainable futures.
Download or read book Biological and Neuroscientific Foundations of Philosophy written by Franco Fabbro and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-03-03 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biological and Neuroscientific Foundations of Philosophy is an authoritative text addressing both academicians and students, and it proposes an integrated and holistic view of scientific study and presents a new paradigm by which to study philosophy. It highlights, in a systematic and sufficiently simple manner, the fundamental role of neuroscience, neuropsychology and biology within philosophical reflection. Written by an expert in neuroscience, the book draws together different strands of study to explore how scientific and neuropsychological discoveries are integral to the study of philosophy and our understanding of mind. It argues to move away from a philosophical paradigm that is based solely within physics and mathematics and to embrace more complex frames of data and knowledge of psychology and biology to advance the discipline. The book also reflects on the symbolic dimensions and the concept of "information" that characterize DNA (biology), and the psyche and language (cognitive and social neuroscience). It offers an ambitious thesis that ties together the philosophical foundations of science, the evolutionary history of human beings, social organization, communication and consciousness. This interdisciplinary work will be highly beneficial for researchers and postgraduate students of neuroscience, philosophy and biological sciences, as well as those interested in the intersection between philosophy and neuroscience.
