The Lighter Side Of Mathematics Proceedings Of The Eugene Strens Memorial Conference On Recreational Mathematics And Its History

In August of 1986, a special conference on recreational mathematics was held at the University of Calgary to celebrate the founding of the Strens Collection. Leading practitioners of recreational mathematics from around the world gathered in Calgary to share with each other the joy and spirit of play that is to be found in recreational mathematics. It would be difficult to find a better collection of wonderful articles on recreational mathematics by a more distinguished group of authors. If you are interested in tessellations, Escher, tilings, Rubik's cube, pentominoes, games, puzzles, the arbelos, Henry Dudeney, or change ringing, then this book is for you.

The Early Mathematics of Leonhard Euler gives an article-by-article description of Leonhard Euler's early mathematical works; the 50 or so mathematical articles he wrote before he left St. Petersburg in 1741 to join the Academy of Frederick the Great in Berlin. These early pieces contain some of Euler's greatest work, the Konigsberg bridge problem, his solution to the Basel problem, and his first proof of the Euler-Fermat theorem. It also presents important results that we seldom realize are due to Euler; that mixed partial derivatives are (usually) equal, our f(x) f(x) notation, and the integrating factor in differential equations. The books shows how contributions in diverse fields are related, how number theory relates to series, which, in turn, relate to elliptic integrals and then to differential equations. There are dozens of such strands in this beautiful web of mathematics. At the same time, we see Euler grow in power and sophistication, from a young student when at 18 he published his first work on differential equations (a paper with a serious flaw) to the most celebrated mathematician and scientist of his time. It is a portrait of the world's most exciting mathematics between 1725 and 1741, rich in technical detail, woven with connections within Euler's work and with the work of other mathematicians in other times and places, laced with historical context.

Calculus Gems, a collection of essays written about mathematicians and mathematics, is a spin-off of two appendices ("Biographical Notes" and "Variety of Additional Topics") found in Simmons' 1985 calculus book. With many additions and some minor adjustments, the material will now be available in a separate softcover volume. The text is suitable as a supplement for a calculus course and/or a history of mathematics course, The overall aim is bound up in the question, "What is mathematics for?" and in Simmons' answer, "To delight the mind and help us understand the world". The essays are independent of one another, allowing the instructor to pick and choose among them. Part A, "Brief Lives", is a biographical history of mathematics from earliest times (Thales, 625–547 BC) through the late 19th century (Weierstrass, 1815–1897) that serves to connect mathematics to the broader intellectual and social history of Western civilization. Part B, "Memorable Mathematics", is a collection of interesting topics from number theory, geometry, and science arranged in an order roughly corresponding to the order of most calculus courses. Some of these sections have a few problems for the student to solve. Students can gain perspective on the mathematical experience and learn some mathematics not contained in the usual courses, and instructors can assign student papers and projects based on the essays. The book teaches by example that mathematics is more than computation. Original illustrations of influential mathematicians in history and their inventions accompany the brief biographies and mathematical discussions.

Martin Gardner is widely known for his writing on recreational mathematics, not least for the myriad problems he has devised over some 25 years for Scientific American. In this book are 36 of his best brainteasers. These are not simply cunning puzzles, but serve to illustrate the art of the mathematician as problem solver, and their solution draws on ideas from topology, probability, number theory, logic and beyond. Fully worked answers are given, which, in turn, lead to additional problems for the reader. For anybody who likes to solve mathematical problems, this book will be both entertaining and a challenge.

MAA Press: An Imprint of the American Mathematical Society This collection will give students (high school or beyond), teachers, and university professors a chance to experience the pleasure of wrestling with some beautiful problems of elementary mathematics. Readers can compare their sleuthing talents with those of Sherlock Holmes, who made a bad mistake regarding the first problem in the collection: Determine the direction of travel of a bicycle that has left its tracks in a patch of mud. Which Way did the Bicycle Go? contains a variety of other unusual and interesting problems in geometry, algebra, combinatorics, and number theory. For example, if a pizza is sliced into eight 45-degree wedges meeting at a point other than the center of the pizza, and two people eat alternate wedges, will they get equal amounts of pizza? Or: What is the rightmost nonzero digit of the product 1⋅2⋅3⋯1,000,000 1⋅2⋅3⋯1,000,000? Or: Is a manufacturer's claim that a certain unusual combination lock allows thousands of combinations justified? Complete solutions to the 191 problems are included along with problem variations and topics for investigation.

The purpose of this book is to demonstrate that complex numbers and geometry can be blended together beautifully. This results in easy proofs and natural generalizations of many theorems in plane geometry, such as the Napoleon theorem, the Ptolemy-Euler theorem, the Simson theorem, and the Morley theorem. The book is self-contained—no background in complex numbers is assumed—and can be covered at a leisurely pace in a one-semester course. Many of the chapters can be read independently. Over 100 exercises are included. The book would be suitable as a text for a geometry course, or for a problem solving seminar, or as enrichment for the student who wants to know more.

As the co-authors present 13 of American Prof. of Russian Lee B. Croft's scholarly articles (in English with Russian examples), the articles fascinate as they advance the reader's knowledge of: glossolalia, poetic decipherment and translation, language philosophy and psychology, linguistic iconicity and language universals, an American Nobel-laureate scientist's inspiration, literary pornography, pervasive triplicity, spontaneous human combustion and polylingual alphamagic squares.