Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, & Other Mathematical Explorations
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Accuracy and precision
Addition
Algebraic number theory
Approximation
Asymptote
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Binary protocol
Binomial coefficient
Birthday problem
Bit
Calculation
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Central limit theorem
Coefficient
Continued fraction
Derivative
Divisibility rule
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Equation
Estimation
Expected value
Exponential function
Factorial
Fair coin
Fermat's little theorem
Fibonacci
Fibonacci number
Fundamental theorem of arithmetic
Geometry
Hamming code
Hyperbolic function
Information theory
Integer
Integer factorization
Irrational number
Lecture
Logarithm
Lucas number
Mathematician
Mathematics
Monomial
Natural number
Newton's method
Normal distribution
Number theory
Parity-check matrix
Peano curve
Pick's theorem
Polynomial
Prime number
Probability
Probability theory
Proportionality (mathematics)
Quantity
Rational approximation
Rational number
Recreational mathematics
Rectangle
Recurrence relation
Remainder
Repetition code
Self-similarity
Series (mathematics)
Sign (mathematics)
Square root
Summation
Tangent
Taylor series
Telephone number
Theorem
Trigonometric functions
Two-dimensional space
Weight
Product details
- ISBN 9780691127972
- Weight: 397g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 05 Nov 2006
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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How does mathematics enable us to send pictures from space back to Earth? Where does the bell-shaped curve come from? Why do you need only 23 people in a room for a 50/50 chance of two of them sharing the same birthday? In Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, and Other Mathematical Explorations, Keith Ball highlights how ideas, mostly from pure math, can answer these questions and many more. Drawing on areas of mathematics from probability theory, number theory, and geometry, he explores a wide range of concepts, some more light-hearted, others central to the development of the field and used daily by mathematicians, physicists, and engineers. Each of the book's ten chapters begins by outlining key concepts and goes on to discuss, with the minimum of technical detail, the principles that underlie them. Each includes puzzles and problems of varying difficulty. While the chapters are self-contained, they also reveal the links between seemingly unrelated topics. For example, the problem of how to design codes for satellite communication gives rise to the same idea of uncertainty as the problem of screening blood samples for disease.
Accessible to anyone familiar with basic calculus, this book is a treasure trove of ideas that will entertain, amuse, and bemuse students, teachers, and math lovers of all ages.
Keith Ball is Professor of Mathematics at University College London and a Royal Society Leverhulme Research Fellow. Well known for his entertaining public lectures on mathematics, he is also the author of a graduate-level introduction to convex geometry in a textbook on geometry.
