Uncle Petros And Goldbach S Conjecture

Author : Apostolos Doxiadis
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 148 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2012-11-15
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780571295692

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Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture by Apostolos Doxiadis Pdf

Uncle Petros is a family joke. An ageing recluse, he lives alone in a suburb of Athens, playing chess and tending to his garden. If you didn't know better, you'd surely think he was one of life's failures. But his young nephew suspects otherwise. For Uncle Petros, he discovers, was once a celebrated mathematician, brilliant and foolhardy enough to stake everything on solving a problem that had defied all attempts at proof for nearly three centuries - Goldbach's Conjecture. His quest brings him into contact with some of the century's greatest mathematicians, including the Indian prodigy Ramanujan and the young Alan Turing. But his struggle is lonely and single-minded, and by the end it has apparently destroyed his life. Until that is a final encounter with his nephew opens up to Petros, once more, the deep mysterious beauty of mathematics. Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture is an inspiring novel of intellectual adventure, proud genius, the exhilaration of pure mathematics - and the rivalry and antagonism which torment those who pursue impossible goals.

Author : Apostolos K. Doxiadis
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2000-02
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 158234079X

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Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture by Apostolos K. Doxiadis Pdf

Author : Apostolos Doxiadis,Barry Mazur
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 593 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2012-03-18
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 9781400842681

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Circles Disturbed by Apostolos Doxiadis,Barry Mazur Pdf

Why narrative is essential to mathematics Circles Disturbed brings together important thinkers in mathematics, history, and philosophy to explore the relationship between mathematics and narrative. The book's title recalls the last words of the great Greek mathematician Archimedes before he was slain by a Roman soldier—"Don't disturb my circles"—words that seem to refer to two radically different concerns: that of the practical person living in the concrete world of reality, and that of the theoretician lost in a world of abstraction. Stories and theorems are, in a sense, the natural languages of these two worlds—stories representing the way we act and interact, and theorems giving us pure thought, distilled from the hustle and bustle of reality. Yet, though the voices of stories and theorems seem totally different, they share profound connections and similarities. A book unlike any other, Circles Disturbed delves into topics such as the way in which historical and biographical narratives shape our understanding of mathematics and mathematicians, the development of "myths of origins" in mathematics, the structure and importance of mathematical dreams, the role of storytelling in the formation of mathematical intuitions, the ways mathematics helps us organize the way we think about narrative structure, and much more. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Amir Alexander, David Corfield, Peter Galison, Timothy Gowers, Michael Harris, David Herman, Federica La Nave, G.E.R. Lloyd, Uri Margolin, Colin McLarty, Jan Christoph Meister, Arkady Plotnitsky, and Bernard Teissier.

Author : Keith Devlin
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2001-05-17
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780786725083

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The Math Gene by Keith Devlin Pdf

Why is math so hard? And why, despite this difficulty, are some people so good at it? If there's some inborn capacity for mathematical thinking—which there must be, otherwise no one could do it —why can't we all do it well? Keith Devlin has answers to all these difficult questions, and in giving them shows us how mathematical ability evolved, why it's a part of language ability, and how we can make better use of this innate talent.He also offers a breathtakingly new theory of language development—that language evolved in two stages, and its main purpose was not communication—to show that the ability to think mathematically arose out of the same symbol-manipulating ability that was so crucial to the emergence of true language. Why, then, can't we do math as well as we can speak? The answer, says Devlin, is that we can and do—we just don't recognize when we're using mathematical reasoning.

Author : Denis Guedj
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2013-08-20
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781466851672

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The Parrot's Theorem by Denis Guedj Pdf

Mr. Ruche, a Parisian bookseller, receives a bequest from a long lost friend in the Amazon of a vast library of math books, which propels him into a great exploration of the story of mathematics. Meanwhile Max, whose family lives with Mr. Ruche, takes in a voluble parrot who will discuss math with anyone. When Mr. Ruche learns of his friend's mysterious death in a Brazilian rainforest, he decides that with the parrot's help he will use these books to teach Max and his brother and sister the mysteries of Euclid's Elements, Pythagoras's Theorem and the countless other mathematical wonders. But soon it becomes clear that Mr. Ruche has inherited the library for reasons other than enlightenment, and before he knows it the household is racing to prevent the parrot and vital, new theorems from falling into the wrong hands. An immediate bestseller when first published in France, The Parrot's Theorem charmingly combines a straightforward history of mathematics and a first-rate murder mystery.

Author : David Leavitt
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 500 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2010-08-10
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781596918405

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The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt Pdf

Based on the remarkable true story of G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, and populated with such luminaries such as D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Indian Clerk takes this extraordinary slice of history and transforms it into an emotional and spellbinding story about the fragility of human connection and our need to find order in the world. A literary masterpiece, it appeared on four bestseller lists, including the Los Angeles Times, and received dazzling reviews from every major publication in the country.

Author : Teukros Michaēlidēs
Publisher : Parmenides Publishing
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1930972261

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Pythagorean Crimes by Teukros Michaēlidēs Pdf

At the root of this historically based work of fiction lies the question as to whether the solution to a mathematical problem could inspire such passion, so intense and perilous, as to drive someone to murder.

Author : Philibert Schogt
Publisher : Thunder's Mouth Press
Page : 159 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1568581661

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The Wild Numbers by Philibert Schogt Pdf

When a mediocre mathematician solves a puzzle that has vexed savants for centuries, his moment of glory is spoiled by accusations that the solution did not originate with him. Original.

Author : Michael Frayn
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 438 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2009-01-08
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780571249190

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Headlong by Michael Frayn Pdf

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Headlong begins when Martin Clay, a young would-be art historian, believes he has discovered a missing masterpiece. The owner of the painting is oblivious to its potential and asks Martin to help him sell it, leaving Martin with the chance of a lifetime: if he could only separate the painter from its owner, he would be able to perform a great public service, to make his professional reputation, perhaps even rather a lot of money as well. But is the painting really what Martin believes it to be? As Martin is drawn further into this moral and intellectual labyrinth, events start to spiral out of control . . . Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Whitbread Novel Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, Headlong is an ingeniously comic thriller that follows a young philosophy lectuerer's obsessive race through the art world in search of an elusive masterpiece. Michael Frayn's other novels include Spies, which won the Whitbread Best Novel award, and Skios, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Author : Paul Hoffman
Publisher : Hachette UK
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2024-05-07
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780306836565

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The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman Pdf

"A funny, marvelously readable portrait of one of the most brilliant and eccentric men in history." --The Seattle Times Paul Erdos was an amazing and prolific mathematician whose life as a world-wandering numerical nomad was legendary. He published almost 1500 scholarly papers before his death in 1996, and he probably thought more about math problems than anyone in history. Like a traveling salesman offering his thoughts as wares, Erdos would show up on the doorstep of one mathematician or another and announce, "My brain is open." After working through a problem, he'd move on to the next place, the next solution. Hoffman's book, like Sylvia Nasar's biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind, reveals a genius's life that transcended the merely quirky. But Erdos's brand of madness was joyful, unlike Nash's despairing schizophrenia. Erdos never tried to dilute his obsessive passion for numbers with ordinary emotional interactions, thus avoiding hurting the people around him, as Nash did. Oliver Sacks writes of Erdos: "A mathematical genius of the first order, Paul Erdos was totally obsessed with his subject--he thought and wrote mathematics for nineteen hours a day until the day he died. He traveled constantly, living out of a plastic bag, and had no interest in food, sex, companionship, art--all that is usually indispensable to a human life." The Man Who Loved Only Numbers is easy to love, despite his strangeness. It's hard not to have affection for someone who referred to children as "epsilons," from the Greek letter used to represent small quantities in mathematics; a man whose epitaph for himself read, "Finally I am becoming stupider no more"; and whose only really necessary tool to do his work was a quiet and open mind. Hoffman, who followed and spoke with Erdos over the last 10 years of his life, introduces us to an undeniably odd, yet pure and joyful, man who loved numbers more than he loved God--whom he referred to as SF, for Supreme Fascist. He was often misunderstood, and he certainly annoyed people sometimes, but Paul Erdos is no doubt missed. --Therese Littleton

Author : Apóstolos K. Doxiádis
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0571203213

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Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture by Apóstolos K. Doxiádis Pdf

Onkel Petros' nevø fortæller kærligt den bittersøde historie om onkelens livslange, passionerede arbejde med at føre bevis for matematikeren Goldbachs formodning, at ethvert lige tal er summen af to primtal

Author : John Derbyshire
Publisher : Joseph Henry Press
Page : 446 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2003-04-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780309141253

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Prime Obsession by John Derbyshire Pdf

In August 1859 Bernhard Riemann, a little-known 32-year old mathematician, presented a paper to the Berlin Academy titled: "On the Number of Prime Numbers Less Than a Given Quantity." In the middle of that paper, Riemann made an incidental remark â€" a guess, a hypothesis. What he tossed out to the assembled mathematicians that day has proven to be almost cruelly compelling to countless scholars in the ensuing years. Today, after 150 years of careful research and exhaustive study, the question remains. Is the hypothesis true or false? Riemann's basic inquiry, the primary topic of his paper, concerned a straightforward but nevertheless important matter of arithmetic â€" defining a precise formula to track and identify the occurrence of prime numbers. But it is that incidental remark â€" the Riemann Hypothesis â€" that is the truly astonishing legacy of his 1859 paper. Because Riemann was able to see beyond the pattern of the primes to discern traces of something mysterious and mathematically elegant shrouded in the shadows â€" subtle variations in the distribution of those prime numbers. Brilliant for its clarity, astounding for its potential consequences, the Hypothesis took on enormous importance in mathematics. Indeed, the successful solution to this puzzle would herald a revolution in prime number theory. Proving or disproving it became the greatest challenge of the age. It has become clear that the Riemann Hypothesis, whose resolution seems to hang tantalizingly just beyond our grasp, holds the key to a variety of scientific and mathematical investigations. The making and breaking of modern codes, which depend on the properties of the prime numbers, have roots in the Hypothesis. In a series of extraordinary developments during the 1970s, it emerged that even the physics of the atomic nucleus is connected in ways not yet fully understood to this strange conundrum. Hunting down the solution to the Riemann Hypothesis has become an obsession for many â€" the veritable "great white whale" of mathematical research. Yet despite determined efforts by generations of mathematicians, the Riemann Hypothesis defies resolution. Alternating passages of extraordinarily lucid mathematical exposition with chapters of elegantly composed biography and history, Prime Obsession is a fascinating and fluent account of an epic mathematical mystery that continues to challenge and excite the world. Posited a century and a half ago, the Riemann Hypothesis is an intellectual feast for the cognoscenti and the curious alike. Not just a story of numbers and calculations, Prime Obsession is the engrossing tale of a relentless hunt for an elusive proof â€" and those who have been consumed by it.

Author : Marcus du Sautoy
Publisher : HarperCollins UK
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2012-05-31
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 9780007380879

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Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry (Text Only) by Marcus du Sautoy Pdf

This new ebook from the author of 'The Music of the Primes' combines a personal insight into the mind of a working mathematician with the story of one of the biggest adventures in mathematics: the search for symmetry.

Author : Brendan Larvor
Publisher : Birkhäuser
Page : 460 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2016-05-25
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 9783319285825

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Mathematical Cultures by Brendan Larvor Pdf

This collection presents significant contributions from an international network project on mathematical cultures, including essays from leading scholars in the history and philosophy of mathematics and mathematics education.​ Mathematics has universal standards of validity. Nevertheless, there are local styles in mathematical research and teaching, and great variation in the place of mathematics in the larger cultures that mathematical practitioners belong to. The reflections on mathematical cultures collected in this book are of interest to mathematicians, philosophers, historians, sociologists, cognitive scientists and mathematics educators.

Author : John L. Casti,Werner DePauli,L Casti
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2009-04-21
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780786747603

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Godel by John L. Casti,Werner DePauli,L Casti Pdf

Kurt Gödel was an intellectual giant. His Incompleteness Theorem turned not only mathematics but also the whole world of science and philosophy on its head. Shattering hopes that logic would, in the end, allow us a complete understanding of the universe, Gödel's theorem also raised many provocative questions: What are the limits of rational thought? Can we ever fully understand the machines we build? Or the inner workings of our own minds? How should mathematicians proceed in the absence of complete certainty about their results? Equally legendary were Gödel's eccentricities, his close friendship with Albert Einstein, and his paranoid fear of germs that eventually led to his death from self-starvation. Now, in the first book for a general audience on this strange and brilliant thinker, John Casti and Werner DePauli bring the legend to life.