The year's finest mathematics writing from around the world This annual anthology brings together the year's finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2017 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else--and you don't need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday occurrences of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today's hottest mathematical debates. Here Evelyn Lamb describes the excitement of searching for incomprehensibly large prime numbers, Jeremy Gray speculates about who would have won math's highest prize--the Fields Medal--in the nineteenth century, and Philip Davis looks at mathematical results and artifacts from a business and marketing viewpoint. In other essays, Noson Yanofsky explores the inherent limits of knowledge in mathematical thinking, Jo Boaler and Lang Chen reveal why finger-counting enhances children's receptivity to mathematical ideas, and Carlo Sequin and Raymond Shiau attempt to discover how the Renaissance painter Fra Luca Pacioli managed to convincingly depict his famous rhombicuboctahedron, a twenty-six-sided Archimedean solid. And there's much, much more. In addition to presenting the year's most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a bibliography of other notable writings and an introduction by the editor, Mircea Pitici. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us--and where it is headed.
Show moreThe year's finest mathematics writing from around the world This annual anthology brings together the year's finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2017 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else--and you don't need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday occurrences of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today's hottest mathematical debates. Here Evelyn Lamb describes the excitement of searching for incomprehensibly large prime numbers, Jeremy Gray speculates about who would have won math's highest prize--the Fields Medal--in the nineteenth century, and Philip Davis looks at mathematical results and artifacts from a business and marketing viewpoint. In other essays, Noson Yanofsky explores the inherent limits of knowledge in mathematical thinking, Jo Boaler and Lang Chen reveal why finger-counting enhances children's receptivity to mathematical ideas, and Carlo Sequin and Raymond Shiau attempt to discover how the Renaissance painter Fra Luca Pacioli managed to convincingly depict his famous rhombicuboctahedron, a twenty-six-sided Archimedean solid. And there's much, much more. In addition to presenting the year's most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a bibliography of other notable writings and an introduction by the editor, Mircea Pitici. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us--and where it is headed.
Show moreIntroduction Mircea Pitici ix Mathematical Products Philip J. Davis 1 The Largest Known Prime Number Evelyn Lamb 7 A Unified Theory of Randomness Kevin Hartnett 10 An "Infinitely Rich" Mathematician Turns 100 Siobhan Roberts 24 Inverse Yogiisms Lloyd N. Trefethen 28 Ramanujan in Bronze Gerald L. Alexanderson 37 Creating Symmetric Fractals Larry Riddle 45 Projective Geometry in the Moon Tilt Illusion Marc Frantz 54 Girih for Domes: Analysis of Three Iranian Domes Mohamm adhossein Kasraei, Yahya Nourian, and Mohamm adjavad Mahdavinejad 64 Why Kids Should Use Their Fingers in Math Class Jo Boaler and Lang Chen 76 Threshold Concepts and Undergraduate Mathematics Teaching Sinead Breen and Ann O'Shea 82 Rising above a Cause-and-Effect Stance in Mathematics Education Research John Mason 93 How to Find the Logarithm of Any Number Using Nothing but a Piece of String Viktor Blasjoe 99 Rendering Pacioli's Rhombicuboctahedron Carlo H. Sequin and Raymond Shiau 106 Who Would Have Won the Fields Medal 150 Years Ago? Jeremy Gray 121 Paradoxes, Contradictions, and the Limits of Science Noson S. Yanofsky 130 Stairway to Heaven: The Abstract Method and Levels of Abstraction in Mathematics Jean-Pierre Marquis 145 Are Our Brains Bayesian? Robert Bain 172 Great Expectations: The Past, Present, and Future of Prediction Graham Southorn 182 Contributors 193 Notable Writings 199 Acknowledgments 221 Credits 223 Introduction
Mircea Pitici teaches advanced calculus at Syracuse University. He holds a PhD in mathematics education from Cornell University and is working on a master's degree in library and information science at Syracuse's iSchool. He has edited The Best Writing on Mathematics since 2010.
Praise for previous editions: "A volume of unexpectedly fascinating mathematical research, musings, and studies that explore subjects from art to medicine... [R]eaders from many disciplines will find much to pique their interest."--Publishers Weekly Praise for previous editions: "Entertaining and informative."--Ian D. Gordon, Library Journal Praise for previous editions: "Wonderful... [C]annot be recommended highly enough!"--Robert Schaefer, New York Journal of Books Praise for previous editions: "A wonderful and varied bouquet of texts... I highly recommend this book to everyone with an interest in mathematics."--Stephen Buckley, Irish Mathematical Society Bulletin
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