The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty - Hardcover

Cole, K. C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151003238 ISBN 13: 9780151003235

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998

Synopsis

Filled with “a thousand fascinating facts and shrewd observations (Martin Gardner, Los Angeles Times), this “beguiling and lucid book” (San Francisco Chronicle) demonstrates how the truth and beauty of everything, from relativity to rainbows, is all in the numbers. Line drawings.

About this title

Review:

"Pure mathematics," Albert Einstein once remarked, "is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas." In The Universe and the Teacup, Los Angeles Times science writer K. C. Cole discusses some of the ways this "poetry" can be used to look at science and other realms of experience.

Mathematics, Cole explains, enables us to "translate the complexity of the world into manageable patterns," whether we're trying to comprehend the risks of smoking or the usefulness of DNA matches in criminal investigations. Cole also looks at how mathematical principles apply in unexpected fields. One chapter, for example, vindicates the theories on voting rights that cost Lani Guinier her Justice Department nomination in 1993.

Without relying on a single equation, Cole's gently humorous prose helps make mathematics unthreatening to laypeople, enabling them to better understand the world in which they live.

About the Author:

A popular science columnist for the Los Angeles Times and teacher at UCLA, K.C. Cole is a recipient of the 1995 American Institute of Physics Award for Best Science Writing. She is also the author of the internationally bestselling The Universe and the Teacup, First You Build a Cloud, and The Hole in the Universe. Cole lives in Santa Monica, California.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0151003238
• ISBN 13: 9780151003235
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224