Nets, Puzzles, and Postmen: An exploration of mathematical connections - Hardcover

Higgins, Peter M

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199218420 ISBN 13: 9780199218424

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2007

Synopsis

What do road and railway systems, electrical circuits, mingling at parties, mazes, family trees, and the internet all have in common?

All are networks - either people or places or things that relate and connect to one another. Only relatively recently have mathematicians begun to explore such networks and connections, and their importance has taken everyone by surprise.

The mathematics of networks form the basis of many fascinating puzzles and problems, from tic-tac-toe and circular sudoku to the 'Chinese Postman Problem' (can he deliver all his letters without traversing the same street twice?). Peter Higgins shows how such puzzles as well as many real-world phenomena are underpinned by the same deep mathematical structure. Understanding mathematical networks can give us remarkable new insights into them all.

About this title

About the Author

Peter M. Higgins is Professor of Mathematics and Head of Mathematical Sciences at the Univesity of Essex, UK. His previous mathematics books for a popular audience include Mathematics for the Curious, Mathematics for the Imagination, and The Official Book of Circular Sudoku. He is the inventor of Circular Sudoku which has now appeared throughout the world in magazines, book, the internet and on handheld computer games.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199218420
• ISBN 13: 9780199218424
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256