| Reviews |
| - 'a marvellously lucid guide to the beauty and mystery of numbers' - Gilbert Adair
|
| Description | | - A concise explanation of the differences between advanced mathematics and what we learn at school
- Offers the reader an insight into such seemingly paradoxical concepts as infinity, the square root of minus one, and curved space
- Tackles the sociological questions that arise regarding the mathematical community - e.g. 'Do mathematicians burn out at the age of 25?'
- Clear and non-technical language throughout
- The author received a Fields Medal for Mathematics in 1998, awarded for 'the most daring, profound and stimulating research done by young mathematicians'
| The aim of this book is to explain, carefully but not technically, the differences between advanced, research-level mathematics, and the sort of mathematics we learn at school. The most fundamental differences are philosophical, and readers of this book will emerge with a clearer understanding of paradoxical-sounding concepts such as infinity, curved space, and imaginary numbers. The first few
chapters are about general aspects of mathematical thought. These are followed by discussions of more specific topics, and the book closes with a chapter answering common sociological questions about the mathematical community (such as "Is it true that mathematicians burn out at the age of 25?")
|
Readership: People who regret not learning more mathematics; people who are fascinated by books by authors like Penrose, but are left wishing they understood them better; people contemplating doing a mathematics-related degree; people who would like to talk about mathematics in an informal way without having to learn technical details.
| Contents |
1.
Models
2.
Proof
3.
Algorithms
4.
Generalization
5.
Sameness and similarity
6.
Invariants
7.
Orders of Magnitude
8.
Numbers
9.
Limiting processes
10.
Dimension
11.
Manifolds
12.
Differential equations
13.
Probability
14.
The life of a mathematician
15.
The philosophy of mathematics
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| Authors, editors,
and contributors |
Timothy Gowers, Cambridge University
|
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limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations,
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possible at the time the catalogue was compiled.
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