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Author: Sabine Hossenfelder Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0465094260 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 277
Book Description
In this "provocative" book (New York Times), a contrarian physicist argues that her field's modern obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science. Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth.
Author: Sabine Hossenfelder Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0465094260 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 277
Book Description
In this "provocative" book (New York Times), a contrarian physicist argues that her field's modern obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science. Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth.
Author: Hirokazu Nishimura Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3764385731 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 238
Book Description
Matroid theory was invented in the middle of the 1930s by two mathematicians independently, namely, Hassler Whitney in the USA and Takeo Nakasawa in Japan. Whitney became famous, but Nakasawa remained anonymous until two decades ago. He left only four papers to the mathematical community, all of them written in the middle of the 1930s. It was a bad time to have lived in a country that had become as eccentric as possible. Just as Nazism became more and more flamboyant in Europe in the 1930s, Japan became more and more esoteric and fanatical in the same time period. This book explains the little that is known about Nakasawa’s personal life in a Japan that had, among other failures, lost control over its military. This book contains his four papers in German and their English translations as well as some extended commentary on the history of Japan during those years. The book also contains 14 photos of him or his family. Although the veil of mystery surrounding Nakasawa’s life has only been partially lifted, the work presented in this book speaks eloquently of a tragic loss to the mathematical community.
Author: Jordan Ellenberg Publisher: Penguin Press ISBN: 1594205221 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 480
Book Description
A brilliant tour of mathematical thought and a guide to becoming a better thinker, How Not to Be Wrong shows that math is not just a long list of rules to be learned and carried out by rote. Math touches everything we do; It's what makes the world make sense. Using the mathematician's methods and hard-won insights-minus the jargon-professor and popular columnist Jordan Ellenberg guides general readers through his ideas with rigor and lively irreverence, infusing everything from election results to baseball to the existence of God and the psychology of slime molds with a heightened sense of clarity and wonder. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see the hidden structures beneath the messy and chaotic surface of our daily lives. How Not to Be Wrong shows us how--Publisher's description.
Author: Brian Hayes Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262536072 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 245
Book Description
A non-mathematician explores mathematical terrain, reporting accessibly and engagingly on topics from Sudoku to probability. Brian Hayes wants to convince us that mathematics is too important and too much fun to be left to the mathematicians. Foolproof, and Other Mathematical Meditations is his entertaining and accessible exploration of mathematical terrain both far-flung and nearby, bringing readers tidings of mathematical topics from Markov chains to Sudoku. Hayes, a non-mathematician, argues that mathematics is not only an essential tool for understanding the world but also a world unto itself, filled with objects and patterns that transcend earthly reality. In a series of essays, Hayes sets off to explore this exotic terrain, and takes the reader with him. Math has a bad reputation: dull, difficult, detached from daily life. As a talking Barbie doll opined, “Math class is tough.” But Hayes makes math seem fun. Whether he's tracing the genealogy of a well-worn anecdote about a famous mathematical prodigy, or speculating about what would happen to a lost ball in the nth dimension, or explaining that there are such things as quasirandom numbers, Hayes wants readers to share his enthusiasm. That's why he imagines a cinematic treatment of the discovery of the Riemann zeta function (“The year: 1972. The scene: Afternoon tea in Fuld Hall at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey”), explains that there is math in Sudoku after all, and describes better-than-average averages. Even when some of these essays involve a hike up the learning curve, the view from the top is worth it.
Author: Reviel Netz Publisher: Da Capo Press ISBN: 078674538X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 344
Book Description
At a Christie's auction in October 1998, a battered medieval manuscript sold for two million dollars to an anonymous bidder, who then turned it over to the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore for further study. The manuscript was a palimpsest-a book made from an earlier codex whose script had been scraped off and the pages used again. Behind the script of the thirteenth-century monk's prayer book, the palimpsest revealed the faint writing of a much older, tenth-century manuscript. Part archaeological detective story, part science, and part history, The Archimedes Codex tells the extraordinary story of this lost manuscript, from its tenth-century creation in Constantinople to the auction block at Christie's, and how a team of scholars used the latest imaging technology to reveal and decipher the original text. What they found was the earliest surviving manuscript by Archimedes (287 b.c.-212 b.c.), the greatest mathematician of antiquity-a manuscript that revealed, for the first time, the full range of his mathematical genius, which was two thousand years ahead of modern science.
Author: Ben Orlin Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal ISBN: 0316509027 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 556
Book Description
A hilarious reeducation in mathematics-full of joy, jokes, and stick figures-that sheds light on the countless practical and wonderful ways that math structures and shapes our world. In Math With Bad Drawings, Ben Orlin reveals to us what math actually is; its myriad uses, its strange symbols, and the wild leaps of logic and faith that define the usually impenetrable work of the mathematician. Truth and knowledge come in multiple forms: colorful drawings, encouraging jokes, and the stories and insights of an empathetic teacher who believes that math should belong to everyone. Orlin shows us how to think like a mathematician by teaching us a brand-new game of tic-tac-toe, how to understand an economic crises by rolling a pair of dice, and the mathematical headache that ensues when attempting to build a spherical Death Star. Every discussion in the book is illustrated with Orlin's trademark "bad drawings," which convey his message and insights with perfect pitch and clarity. With 24 chapters covering topics from the electoral college to human genetics to the reasons not to trust statistics, Math with Bad Drawings is a life-changing book for the math-estranged and math-enamored alike.
Author: William Dunham Publisher: American Mathematical Society ISBN: 147046618X Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 185
Book Description
Leonhard Euler was one of the most prolific mathematicians that have ever lived. This book examines the huge scope of mathematical areas explored and developed by Euler, which includes number theory, combinatorics, geometry, complex variables and many more. The information known to Euler over 300 years ago is discussed, and many of his advances are reconstructed. Readers will be left in no doubt about the brilliance and pervasive influence of Euler's work.
Author: Kit Yates Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1982111887 Category : MATHEMATICS Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
"Few of us really appreciate the full power of math--the extent to which its influence is not only in every office and every home, but also in every courtroom and hospital ward. In this ... book, Kit Yates explores the true stories of life-changing events in which the application--or misapplication--of mathematics has played a critical role: patients crippled by faulty genes and entrepreneurs bankrupted by faulty algorithms; innocent victims of miscarriages of justice; and the unwitting victims of software glitches"--Publisher marketing.
Author: Thomas W. Cusick Publisher: American Mathematical Soc. ISBN: 0821815318 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 109
Book Description
This book is directed at mathematicians interested in Diophantine approximation and the theory of quadratic forms and the relationship of these subjects to Markoff and Lagrange spectra. The authors have gathered and systemized numerous results from the diverse and scattered literature, much of which has appeared in rather inaccessible Russian publications. Readers will find a comprehensive overview of the theory of the Markoff and Lagrange spectra, starting with the origins of the subject in two papers of A. Markoff from 1879-80. Most of the progress since that time has occurred in the last 20 years or so, when there has been a resurgence of interest in these spectra. The authors provide an excellent exposition of these developments, in addition to presenting many proofs and correcting various errors in the literature.
Author: Sabine Hossenfelder
Author: Sabine Hossenfelder
Author: Hirokazu Nishimura
Author: Jordan Ellenberg
Author: Brian Hayes
Author: Reviel Netz
Author: Ben Orlin
Author: Michael Frame
Author: William Dunham
Author: Kit Yates
Author: Thomas W. Cusick