Hidden Harmonies : The Lives and Times of the Pythagorean Theorem

Kaplan, Robert, Kaplan, Ellen

ISBN 10: 1596915226 / ISBN 13: 9781596915220

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2011

Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # GRP91313208

Synopsis:

A squared plus b squared equals c squared. It sounds simple, doesn't it? Yet this familiar expression is a gateway into the riotous garden of mathematics, and sends us on a journey of exploration in the company of two inspired guides, acclaimed authors Robert and Ellen Kaplan. With wit, verve, and clarity, they trace the life of the Pythagorean theorem, from ancient Babylon to the present, visiting along the way Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, President James Garfield, and the Freemasons-not to mention the elusive Pythagoras himself, who almost certainly did not make the statement that bears his name.


How can a theorem have more than one proof? Why does this one have more than two hundred-or is it four thousand? The Pythagorean theorem has even more applications than proofs: Ancient Egyptians used it for surveying property lines, and today astronomers call on it to measure the distance between stars. Its generalizations are stunning-the theorem works even with shapes on the sides that aren't squares, and not just in two dimensions, but any number you like, up to infinity. And perhaps its most intriguing feature of all, this tidy expression opened the door to the world of irrational numbers, an untidy discovery that deeply troubled Pythagoras's disciples.


Like the authors' bestselling The Nothing That Is and Chances Are . . .-hailed as "erudite and witty," "magnificent," and "exhilarating"-Hidden Harmonies makes the excitement of mathematics palpable.

About the Authors: Ellen Kaplan has taught mathematics to people from six to sixty, at leading independent schools and most recently at Harvard University. With her husband, Robert, she wrote The Art of the Infinite. Ellen is also co-author of Chances Are: Adventures in Probability and Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err is Human, co-written with her son, Michael Kaplan.

Robert Kaplan has taught mathematics to people from six to sixty, at leading independent schools and most recently at Harvard University. He is the author of the best-selling The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero, which has been translated into 10 languages, and, with his wife, Ellen, the co-author of The Art of the Infinite.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Hidden Harmonies : The Lives and Times of ...
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Publication Date: 2011
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good
Edition: First Edition.