Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities - Hardcover

Stewart, Professor Ian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846680646 ISBN 13: 9781846680649

Publisher: Profile Books, 2008

Synopsis

School maths is not the interesting part. The real fun is elsewhere. Like a magpie, Ian Stewart has collected the most enlightening, entertaining and vexing 'curiosities' of maths over the years...Now, the private collection is displayed in his cabinet.

There are some hidden gems of logic, geometry and probability - like how to extract a cherry from a cocktail glass (harder than you think), a pop up dodecahedron, the real reason why you can't divide anything by zero and some tips for making money by proving the obvious. Scattered among these are keys to unlocking the mysteries of Fermat's last theorem, the Poincaré Conjecture, chaos theory, and the P/NP problem for which a million dollar prize is on offer. There are beguiling secrets about familiar names like Pythagoras or prime numbers, as well as anecdotes about great mathematicians. Pull out the drawers of the Professor's cabinet and who knows what could happen...

About this title

Review:

This is a superb Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities that deserves a place with the classics of the genre. (Mathematics today)

The book's goofy and unabashed enthusiasm will charm any interested teenager (Daily Telegraph)

interesting and illuminating... (BBC Focus)

Stewart has served up the instructive equivalent of a Michelin-starred tasting menu, or perhaps a smorgasbord of appetisers. And of course, appetisers are designed to give you an appetite for more. (Tim Radford Guardian)

Book Description:

A book of mathematical oddities: games, puzzles, facts, numbers and delightful mathematical nibbles for the curious and adventurous mind.

About this edition

• Publisher: Profile Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1846680646
• ISBN 13: 9781846680649
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320