Mathematics by Keith Devlin
Mathematics: The New Golden Age offers a glimpse of the extraordinary vistas and bizarre universes opened up by contemporary mathematicians: Hilbert's tenth problem and the four-color theorem, Gaussian integers, chaotic dynamics and the Mandelbrot set, infinite numbers, and strange number systems. Why a new golden age? According to Keith Devlin, we are currently witnessing an astronomical amount of mathematical research. Charting the most significant developments that have taken place in mathematics since 1960, Devlin expertly describes these advances for the interested layperson and adroitly summarizes their significance as he leads the reader into the heart of the most interesting mathematical perplexities--from the biggest known prime number to the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture for Fermat's Last Theorem. Revised and updated to take into account dramatic developments of the 1980s and 1990s, Mathematics: The New Golden Age includes, in addition to Fermat's Last Theorem, major new sections on knots and topology, and the mathematics of the physical universe. Devlin portrays mathematics not as a collection of procedures for solving problems, but as a unified part of human culture, as part of mankind's eternal quest to understand ourselves and the world in which we live. Though a genuine science, mathematics has strong artistic elements as well; this creativity is in evidence here as Devlin shows what mathematicians do--and reveals that it has little to do with numbers and arithmetic. This book brilliantly captures the fascinating new age of mathematics.
Dr. Keith Devlin is a mathematician at Stanford University in California. He is a co-founder and Executive Director of the university's H-STAR institute, a co-founder of the Stanford Media X research network, and a Senior Researcher at CSLI. He has written 31 books and over 80 published research articles. His books have been awarded the Pythagoras Prize and the Peano Prize, and his writing has earned him the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. In 2003, he was recognized by the California State Assembly for his innovative work and longtime service in the field of mathematics and its relation to logic and linguistics. He is the Math Guy on National Public Radio. (Archived at http: //www.stanford.edu/ kdevlin/MathGuy.html.)
He is a World Economic Forum Fellow and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. He also works on the design of information/reasoning systems for intelligence analysis. Other research interests include: theory of information, models of reasoning, applications of mathematical techniques in the study of communication, and mathematical cognition.
He writes a monthly column for the Mathematical Association of America, Devlin's Angle: http: //www.maa.org/devlin/devangle.ht
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780140227284 |
| ISBN 10 | 0140227288 |
| Title | Mathematics |
| Author | Keith Devlin |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Year published | 1988-03-31 |
| Number of pages | 304 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |