Mathematical Carnival

Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This volume, first published in 1975, contains columns published in the magazine from 1965-1967. This 1989 MAA edition contains a foreword by John H. Conway and a postscript and extended bibliography added by Gardner for this edition.

Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This volume, first published in 1979, contains columns published in the magazine from 1968-1971. This 1992 MAA edition contains a foreword by Donald Knuth and a postscript and extended bibliography added by Gardner for this edition.

Engaging a diverse range of contemporary anglophone literature from authors of the Asian, Middle Eastern and Caribbean diasporas, this book explores how such works turn to spirit forces, spirit realms and spirit beings - were-animals, mystical birds, and snake goddesses - as positive forces that assert perceptual dimensions beyond those of the human, and present a vision of Earth as agentive and animate. With previous scholarship downplaying these aspects of modern works as uncanny hauntings or symptoms of capitalism's or anthropocentrism's destructiveness, or within a blanket rubric of 'magical realism', Hilary Thompson rejects this partitioning of them as products of an exotic East or global South. By contrast, this book builds a new critical framework for analysis of worldly spirits, drawing on anthropological discussions of animism, the newly recovered 1930s boundary-crossing art movement Dimensionism, and multispecies theories of animals' diverse perceptual worlds. Taking stock of novels published from 2018-2020 by such writers as Amitav Ghosh, André Alexis, Yangsze Choo, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Zeyn Joukhadar, and Tanya Tagaq, Thompson illuminates how these works extend an ecological call to decentre the human and align with multidimensional theories of art and literature to provide ways to read for rather than reduce the extra-human dimensions emerging in contemporary fiction. A refreshing rejection of ecological apocalypticism, this book unsettles typical conceptualizations of both anglophone and Anthropocene literatures by invoking European art theory, philosophy, and non-Western ideas on animism and spirits to put forward perceptions of the extra-human as a form of dealing with the many uncertainties of today's different crises.

There are thousands of books relating to poker, blackjack, roulette and baccarat, including strategy guides, statistical analysis, psychological studies, and much more. However, there are no books on Pell, Rouleno, Street Dice, and many other games that have had a short life in casinos! While this is understandable — most casino gamblers have not heard of these games, and no one is currently playing them — their absence from published works means that some interesting mathematics and gaming history are at risk of being lost forever. Table games other than baccarat, blackjack, craps, and roulette are called carnival games, as a nod to their origin in actual traveling or seasonal carnivals. Mathematics of Casino Carnival Games is a focused look at these games and the mathematics at their foundation. Features • Exercises, with solutions, are included for readers who wish to practice the ideas presented • Suitable for a general audience with an interest in the mathematics of gambling and games • Goes beyond providing practical ‘tips’ for gamblers, and explores the mathematical principles that underpin gambling games

Contains 500 problems ranging over a wide spectrum of mathematics and of levels of difficulty.