Download or read book Great Currents of Mathematical Thought written by François Le Lionnais and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 50 essays by eminent scholars include meditations on "Structures," Disciplines," "Space," "Function," "Group," "Probability," and "The Mathematical Epic" (Volume I) and on "Mathematics and the Human Intellect," "Mathematics and Technology," and "Mathematics and Civilization" (Volume II). 1962 edition.
Download or read book The Best Writing on Mathematics 2011 written by Mircea Pitici and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year's finest writing on mathematics from around the world This anthology brings together the year's finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2011 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else—and you don't need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday occurrences of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today's hottest mathematical debates. Here Ian Hacking discusses the salient features that distinguish mathematics from other disciplines of the mind; Doris Schattschneider identifies some of the mathematical inspirations of M. C. Escher's art; Jordan Ellenberg describes compressed sensing, a mathematical field that is reshaping the way people use large sets of data; Erica Klarreich reports on the use of algorithms in the job market for doctors; and much, much more. In addition to presenting the year's most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a foreword by esteemed physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us—and where it is headed.
Download or read book The Best Writing on Mathematics 2016 written by Mircea Pitici and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year's finest mathematics writing from around the world This annual anthology brings together the year's finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2016 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else—and you don't need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday occurrences of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today's hottest mathematical debates. Here Burkard Polster shows how to invent your own variants of the Spot It! card game, Steven Strogatz presents young Albert Einstein's proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, Joseph Dauben and Marjorie Senechal find a treasure trove of math in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Andrew Gelman explains why much scientific research based on statistical testing is spurious. In other essays, Brian Greene discusses the evolving assumptions of the physicists who developed the mathematical underpinnings of string theory, Jorge Almeida examines the misperceptions of people who attempt to predict lottery results, and Ian Stewart offers advice to authors who aspire to write successful math books for general readers. And there's much, much more. In addition to presenting the year's most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a bibliography of other notable writings and an introduction by the editor, Mircea Pitici. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us—and where it is headed.
Download or read book Logic Reasoning and Rationality written by Erik Weber and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-08-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains a selection of the papers presented at the Logic, Reasoning and Rationality 2010 conference (LRR10) in Ghent. The conference aimed at stimulating the use of formal frameworks to explicate concrete cases of human reasoning, and conversely, to challenge scholars in formal studies by presenting them with interesting new cases of actual reasoning. According to the members of the Wiener Kreis, there was a strong connection between logic, reasoning, and rationality and that human reasoning is rational in so far as it is based on (classical) logic. Later, this belief came under attack and logic was deemed inadequate to explicate actual cases of human reasoning. Today, there is a growing interest in reconnecting logic, reasoning and rationality. A central motor for this change was the development of non-classical logics and non-classical formal frameworks. The book contains contributions in various non-classical formal frameworks, case studies that enhance our apprehension of concrete reasoning patterns, and studies of the philosophical implications for our understanding of the notions of rationality.
Download or read book Inventions in Sociology written by Sal Restivo and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-03-18 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a collection of old and new essays exploring the author’s unique contributions to the sociology of science, mathematics, logic, robotics, brain, and god. Known for his defense of a strong social constructionist approach to the hard problems in the sociology of science, the power and range of Restivo’s interests and studies are discussed in this unique text. The essays range from his introduction of the sociology of objectivity early in his career to his recent construction of a social brain paradigm. The author situates himself in the context of the leading paradigms in science studies and his relationships with leading figures in the field including Latour, Woolgar, Needham, and D.T. Campbell. The book demonstrates a general theoretical focus on the rejection of transcendence. He rejects Platonism in mathematics and socially situates consciousness, genius, and God. The author’s wide ranging interdisciplinary competencies reflect classical and postmodern influences and will be an invaluable reference for researchers working in this field.
Download or read book Calculus A Liberal Art written by W.M. Priestley and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting mathematics as forming a natural bridge between the humanities and the sciences, this book makes calculus accessible to those in the liberal arts. Much of the necessary geometry and algebra are exposed through historical development, and a section on the development of calculus offers insights into the place of mathematics in the history of thought.
Download or read book The Theory of Narrative Thought written by Lee Roy Beach and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-25 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The renowned naturalist, Loren Eisely, observed that we humans have given up the “certainty of the animal that what it senses is exactly there in the shape the eye beholds.” The big question is, what did we get in return? This book provides a convincing answer to this question, arguing that, instead of recording reality, your brain uses your experience to create a story, a narrative, about how what happened to you in the past led to what is happening to you now. This narrative is your private reality. The book continues by showing how replacing recorded reality with private narrative enabled humans to anticipate the fundamentally unknowable immediate and remote future and expose potential threats. It then shows how private narrative enabled complex thought and communication with others. Drawing upon a wide range of research, the book provides a stimulating new way of viewing human experience, thinking, communicating, and action.
Download or read book The Art of the Intelligible written by J. Bell and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compact survey, at the elementary level, of some of the most important concepts of mathematics. Attention is paid to their technical features, historical development and broader philosophical significance. Each of the various branches of mathematics is discussed separately, but their interdependence is emphasised throughout. Certain topics - such as Greek mathematics, abstract algebra, set theory, geometry and the philosophy of mathematics - are discussed in detail. Appendices outline from scratch the proofs of two of the most celebrated limitative results of mathematics: the insolubility of the problem of doubling the cube and trisecting an arbitrary angle, and the Gödel incompleteness theorems. Additional appendices contain brief accounts of smooth infinitesimal analysis - a new approach to the use of infinitesimals in the calculus - and of the philosophical thought of the great 20th century mathematician Hermann Weyl. Readership: Students and teachers of mathematics, science and philosophy. The greater part of the book can be read and enjoyed by anyone possessing a good high school mathematics background.
Download or read book Mathematics and the Aesthetic written by Nathalie Sinclair and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-12-28 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays explores the ancient affinity between the mathematical and the aesthetic, focusing on fundamental connections between these two modes of reasoning and communicating. From historical, philosophical and psychological perspectives, with particular attention to certain mathematical areas such as geometry and analysis, the authors examine ways in which the aesthetic is ever-present in mathematical thinking and contributes to the growth and value of mathematical knowledge.
Download or read book A History of Mathematics written by Carl B. Boyer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-01-11 with total page 695 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The updated new edition of the classic and comprehensive guide to the history of mathematics For more than forty years, A History of Mathematics has been the reference of choice for those looking to learn about the fascinating history of humankind’s relationship with numbers, shapes, and patterns. This revised edition features up-to-date coverage of topics such as Fermat’s Last Theorem and the Poincaré Conjecture, in addition to recent advances in areas such as finite group theory and computer-aided proofs. Distills thousands of years of mathematics into a single, approachable volume Covers mathematical discoveries, concepts, and thinkers, from Ancient Egypt to the present Includes up-to-date references and an extensive chronological table of mathematical and general historical developments. Whether you're interested in the age of Plato and Aristotle or Poincaré and Hilbert, whether you want to know more about the Pythagorean theorem or the golden mean, A History of Mathematics is an essential reference that will help you explore the incredible history of mathematics and the men and women who created it.
Download or read book The Beauty of Doing Mathematics written by Serge Lang and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If someone told you that mathematics is quite beautiful, you might be surprised. But you should know that some people do mathematics all their lives, and create mathematics, just as a composer creates music. Usually, every time a mathematician solves a problem, this gives rise to many oth ers, new and just as beautiful as the one which was solved. Of course, often these problems are quite difficult, and as in other disciplines can be understood only by those who have studied the subject with some depth, and know the subject well. In 1981, Jean Brette, who is responsible for the Mathematics Section of the Palais de la Decouverte (Science Museum) in Paris, invited me to give a conference at the Palais. I had never given such a conference before, to a non-mathematical public. Here was a challenge: could I communicate to such a Saturday afternoon audience what it means to do mathematics, and why one does mathematics? By "mathematics" I mean pure mathematics. This doesn't mean that pure math is better than other types of math, but I and a number of others do pure mathematics, and it's about them that I am now concerned. Math has a bad reputation, stemming from the most elementary levels. The word is in fact used in many different contexts. First, I had to explain briefly these possible contexts, and the one with which I wanted to deal.
Download or read book Mathematics written by Douglas M. Campbell and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2019-08-08 with total page 825 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To understand why mathematics exists and why it is perpetuated one must know something of its history and of the lives and results of famous mathematicians. This three-volume collection of entertaining articles will captivate those with a special interest in mathematics as well as arouse those with even the slightest curiosity about the most sophisticated sciences.
Download or read book The Philosophy of Mathematics Education written by Paul Ernest and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although many agree that all teaching rests on a theory of knowledge, there has been no in-depth exploration of the implications of the philosophy of mathematics for education. This is Paul Ernest's aim. Building on the work of Lakatos and Wittgenstein it challenges the prevalent notion that mathematical knowledge is certain, absolute and neutral, and offers instead an account of mathematics as a social construction. This has profound educational implications for social issues, including gender, race and multiculturalism; for pedagogy, including investigations and problem solving; and challenges hierarchical views of mathematics, learning and ability. Beyond this, the book offers a well-grounded model of five educational ideologies, each with its own epistemology, values, aims and social group of adherents. An analysis of the impact of these groups on the National Curriculum results in a powerful critique, revealing the questionable assumptions, values and interests upon which it rests. The book finishes on an optimistic note, arguing that pedagogy, left unspecified by the National Curriculum, is the way to achieve the radical aims of educating confident problem posers and solvers who are able to critically evaluate the social uses of mathematics.
Download or read book Mathematics in Society and History written by S. Restivo and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book by a sociologist devoted exclusively to a general sociology of mathematics. The author provides examples of different ways of thinking about mathematics sociologically. The survey of mathematical traditions covers ancient China, the Arabic-Islamic world, India, and Europe. Following the leads of classical social theorists such as Emile Durkheim, Restivo develops the idea that mathematical concepts and ideas are collective representations, and that it is mathematical communities that create mathematics, not individual mathematicians. The implications of the sociology of mathematics, and especially of pure mathematics, for a sociology of mind are also explored. In general, the author's objective is to explore, conjecture, suggest, and stimulate in order to introduce the sociological perspective on mathematics, and to broaden and deepen the still narrow, shallow path that today carries the sociology of mathematics. This book will interest specialists in the philosophy, history, and sociology of mathematics, persons interested in mathematics education, students of science and society, and people interested in current developments in the social and cultural analysis of science and mathematics.
Download or read book Mathematical Enculturation written by Alan Bishop and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mathematics is in the unenviable position of being simultaneously one of the most important school subjects for today's children to study and one of the least well understood. Its reputation is awe-inspiring. Everybody knows how important it is and everybody knows that they have to study it. But few people feel comfortable with it; so much so that it is socially quite acceptable in many countries to confess ignorance about it, to brag about one's incompe tence at doing it, and even to claim that one is mathophobic! So are teachers around the world being apparently legal sadists by inflicting mental pain on their charges? Or is it that their pupils are all masochists, enjoying the thrill of self-inflicted mental torture? More seriously, do we really know what the reasons are for the mathematical activity which goes on in schools? Do we really have confidence in our criteria for judging what's important and what isn't? Do we really know what we should be doing? These basic questions become even more important when considered in the context of two growing problem areas. The first is a concern felt in many countries about the direction which mathematics education should take in the face of the increasing presence of computers and calculator-related technol ogy in society.
Download or read book Mathematics written by Morris Kline and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1982 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work stresses the illogical manner in which mathematics has developed, the question of applied mathematics as against 'pure' mathematics, and the challenges to the consistency of mathematics' logical structure that have occurred in the twentieth century.
Download or read book Excursions in Calculus written by Robert M. Young and published by American Mathematical Soc.. This book was released on 1992-10-01 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the rich and elegant interplay between the two main currents of mathematics, the continuous and the discrete. Such fundamental notions in discrete mathematics as induction, recursion, combinatorics, number theory, discrete probability, and the algorithmic point of view as a unifying principle are continually explored as they interact with traditional calculus.
