Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz

Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELER
Marvelous . . . an array of witty and astonishing stories . . . to illuminate how calculus has helped bring into being our contemporary world.--The Washington Post

From preeminent math personality and author of The Joy of x, a brilliant and endlessly appealing explanation of calculus - how it works and why it makes our lives immeasurably better.

Without calculus, we wouldn't have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. We wouldn't have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket.

Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz's brilliantly creative, down-to-earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity; it's about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number--infinity--to tackle real-world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous.

Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes backwards sometimes; how to make electricity with magnets; how to ensure your rocket doesn't miss the moon; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.

As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.

Steven H. Strogatz is professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1986. Professor Strogatz has been honored with several awards including MIT's highest teaching prize, the E.M. Baker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, as well as a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. His research on a wide variety of nonlinear systems--from synchronized fireflies to small-world networks--has been featured in the pages of Scientific American, Nature, Discover, Business Week, and The New York Times .

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9780358299288
ISBN 10	0358299284
Titel	Infinite Powers
Autor	Steven Strogatz
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Paperback
Verlag	Mariner Books
Erscheinungsjahr	2020-04-14
Seitenanzahl	400
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar