Mathematical Encounters of the Second Kind - Hardcover

Davis, Philip J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 081763939X ISBN 13: 9780817639396

Publisher: Birkhäuser, 1996

Synopsis

A number of years ago, Harriet Sheridan, then Dean of Brown University, organized a series oflectures in which individual faculty members described how it came about that they entered their various fields. I was invited to participate in this series and found in the invitation an opportunity to recall events going back to my early teens. The lecture was well received and its reception encouraged me to work up an expanded version. My manuscript lay dormant all these years. In the meanwhile, sufficiently many other mathematical experiences and encounters accumulated to make this little book. My 1981 lecture is the basis of the first piece: "Napoleon's Theorem. " Although there is a connection between the first piece and the second, the four pieces here are essentially independent. The sec­ ond piece, "Carpenter and the Napoleon Ascription," has as its object a full description of a certain type of scholar-storyteller (of whom I have known and admired several). It is a pastiche, contain­ ing a salad bar selection blended together by my own imagination. This piece purports, as a secondary goal, to present a solution to a certain unsolved historical problem raised in the first piece. The third piece, "The Man Who Began His Lectures with 'Namely'," is a short reminiscence of Stefan Bergman, one of my teachers of graduate mathematics. Bergman, a remarkable person­ ality, was born in Poland and came to the United States in 1939.

About this title

Review

"This is a truly fascinating story which ... provides an insight into the life of an outstanding scientific writer."

―J. Usher, Mathematics Today

"If I ever were stranded in an airport, bored silly and searching for someone to talk to, I think I'd like Phillip J. Davis to be stranded with me... Davis appears to have no artifice. His book is a compendium of several tales that caught his interest. It's also a book that, often subtly, reveals the sort of mathematical lore that keeps mathematicians talking as they gather for afternoon tea in universities throughout the country."

―SIAM Review

Synopsis

Philip Davis is one of America's outstanding writers on the philosophy of science, and in this text he provides an informative portrayal of an occupation that is either not well understood or misconceived by those outside the profession.

Edition details

• Publisher: Birkhäuser
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081763939X
• ISBN 13: 9780817639396
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 312