Coincidences, Chaos, and All That Math Jazz: Making Light of Weighty Ideas - Softcover

9780393329315: Coincidences, Chaos, and All That Math Jazz: Making Light of Weighty Ideas
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“A profusely illustrated, bemusingly unorthodox introduction to math.”―Booklist

A book for the eternally curious, Coincidences fuses a professor’s understanding of the hidden mathematical skeleton of the universe with the sensibility of a stand-up comedian, making life’s big questions accessible and compelling. Each chapter opens with a surprising insight―not a mathematic formula, but a common observation. From there, the authors leapfrog over math and anecdote toward profound ideas about nature, art, and music. Coincidences is a book for lovers of puzzles and posers of outlandish questions, lapsed math aficionados and the formula-phobic alike.

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About the Author:

Edward B. Burger is professor of mathematics and chair at Williams College. He has won several prestigious teaching and writing awards from the Mathematical Association of America. He lives in Massachusetts.

Michael Starbird is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of UT’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers. He lives in Texas.

From Booklist:
As if they were comedy-club stand-ups, Burger and Starbird employ puns and silly scenarios to tickle those who wouldn't ordinarily pick up a math book. Everyone, however fearful of the topic, uses math in daily life. Two popular fixations with numbers that the authors home in on include the amazing similarities between John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln and playing the lottery. Describing the easy math beneath superficially wondrous things, often no more complicated than enumeration and arithmetic, Burger and Starbird dispel the astounding to reveal what a little logical rigor can do, and they use their schtick to keep things light. Avoiding alarming announcements, they never charge headlong into a topic such as the Golden Ratio, but circumscribe it by counting swirls on pineapples and noting the ratio's frequent appearance in nature and in art. Likewise, Burger and Starbird don't bludgeon readers with number theory, geometry, or topology; they take up origami or spin a yarn about a tsetse fly. A profusely illustrated, bemusingly unorthodox introduction to math. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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  • PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
  • Publication date2006
  • ISBN 10 0393329313
  • ISBN 13 9780393329315
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages288
  • Rating

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