The authors offer some beguiling insights on what math is about and how it has evolved but no royal road to easy...
A science writer and astronomer and his student, a teen math prodigy, join forces to elucidate fields of math they find weird.
Darling (Mayday!: A History of Flight Through its Martyrs, Oddballs, and Daredevils, 2015, etc.) and Banerjee are struck by how some of the most abstruse findings from math turn out to have practical applications in quantum physics or computer science—or lead to concepts like orders of infinity or yield unexpected patterns of numbers or figures. One could argue that these findings are neither weird nor magical but the inexorable results of logic and the permissible rules of operation of mathematical systems by imaginative thinkers. As subjects, the authors examine selected fields of pure, as opposed to applied, math. The first chapter takes on the idea of seeing in the fourth dimension, with descriptions of the 4-D extension of the cube called a tesseract. There follows a chapter on probability emphasizing non-intuitive findings and then one on fractals, a field that deals with curves that have fractional dimensions. This idea grew out of a paper by the field’s inventor, Benoit Mandelbrot, that asked, “how long is the coast of Britain?” Thereafter, the authors’ choices are more self-indulgent, with chapters on chess and music, which will be lost on readers who are not game players or familiar with harmonics. Other areas concern computer science and number theory emphasizing primes. There is a particularly wearisome chapter on competitions to generate large and larger numbers, a sport favored by Banerjee. The text concludes with chapters on topology, set theory, infinity, and the foundations of mathematics. This is difficult material, and readers should be familiar with logical paradoxes, the meaning of “proof,” and notions of consistency and completeness of axiomatic systems as well as the work Gödel and others in establishing the incompleteness of any mathematical system complex enough to embody arithmetic.
The authors offer some beguiling insights on what math is about and how it has evolved but no royal road to easy understanding.Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5416-4478-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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