The Secret Life of Numbers: 50 Easy Pieces on How Mathematicians Work and Think

Most of us picture mathematicians laboring before a chalkboard, scribbling numbers and obscure symbols as they mutter unintelligibly. This lighthearted (but realistic) sneak-peak into the everyday world of mathematicians turns that stereotype on its head.Most people have little idea what mathematicians do or how they think. It’s often difficult to see how their seemingly arcane and esoteric work applies to our own everyday lives. But mathematics also holds a special allure for many people. We are drawn to its inherent beauty and fascinated by its complexityâ€"but often intimidated by its presumed difficulty. The Secret Life of Numbers opens our eyes to the joys of mathematics, introducing us to the charming, often whimsical side, of the discipline. Divided into several parts, the book looks at interesting and largely unknown historical tidbits, introduces the largerthan- life practitioners of mathematics through the ages, profiles some of the most significant unsolved conjectures, and describes problems and puzzles that have already been solved. Rounding out the table of contents is a host of mathematical miscellanyâ€"all of which add up to 50 fun, sometimes cheeky, shorttakes on the field. Chock full of stories, anecdotes, and entertaining vignettes, The Secret Life of Numbers shows us how mathematics really does affect almost every aspect of lifeâ€"from the law to geography, elections to botanyâ€"and we come to appreciate the delight and gratification that mathematics holds for all of us.
Table of Contents
Front Matter
I Historical Tidbits - 1 Lopping Leap Years
2 Is the World Coming to an End Soon?
3 Cozy Zurich
4 Daniel Bernoulli and His Difficult Family
II Unsolved Conjectures - 5 The Mathematicians' Million Dollar Baby
6 A Puzzle by Any Other Name
7 Twins, Cousins, and Sexy Primes
8 Hilbert's Elusive Problem Number 16
III Solved Problems - 9 The Tile Layer's Efficiency Problem
10 The Catalanian Rabbi's Problem
11 Even Infinite Series End Sometimes
12 Proving the Proof
13 Has Poincaré's Conjecture Finally Been Solved?
IV Personalities - 14 Late Tribute to a Tragic Hero
15 The Unpaid Professor
16 Genius from a Different Planet
17 The Resurrection of Geometry
18 God's Gift to Science?
19 Vice-President of Imagineering
20 The Demoted Pensioner
21 A Grand Master Becomes Permanent Visiting Professor
V Concrete and Abstract Matters - 22 Knots and "Unknots"
23 Knots and Tangles with Real Ropes
24 Small Mistakes May Have Large Consequences
25 Ignorant Gamblers
26 Tetris Is Hard
27 Groups, Monster Groups, and Baby Monsters
28 Fermat's Incorrect Conjecture
29 The Crash of Catastrophe Theory
30 Deceptive Simplicity
31 The Beauty of Dissymmetry
32 Random and Not So Random
33 How Can One Be Sure It's Prime?
VI Interdisciplinary Potpourri - 34 A Mathematician Judges the Judges (Law)
35 Elections Aren't Decided by the Voters Alone (Political Science)
36 A Dollar Isn't Always Worth a Dollar (Insurance)
37 Compressing the Divine Comedy (Lingusitics)
38 Nature's Fundamental Formula (Botany)
39 Stacking Words Like Oranges and Tomatoes (Computer Science)
39 Stacking Words Like Oranges and Tomatoes (Computer Science)
41 Calculated in Cold Ice (Physics)
42 Built on Sand (Physics)
43 Buzzing Around Corners (Biology)
44 Inexperienced Traders Make the Market Efficient (Economics)
45 The Waggle Dance of Internet Servers (Computer Science, Biology)
46 Turbulent Liquids and Stock Markets (Finance, Economics)
47 Encrypting Messages with Candles and Hot Plates (Cryptography)
48 Fighting for Survival (Evolutionary Theory, Finance)
49 Insults Stink (Neurosciences, Economics)
50 Bible Codes: The Not So Final Report (Theology)
References
Index