Mathematics: The Science of Patterns: The Search for Order in Life, Mind and the Universe

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Macmillan, 15. des. 1996 - 224 sider
To most people, mathematics means working with numbers. But as Keith Devlin shows in Mathematics: The Science of Patterns, this definition has been out of date for nearly 2,500 years. Mathematicians now see their work as the study of patterns—real or imagined, visual or mental, arising from the natural world or from within the human mind.

Using this basic definition as his central theme, Devlin explores the patterns of counting, measuring, reasoning, motion, shape, position, and prediction, revealing the powerful influence mathematics has over our perception of reality. Interweaving historical highlights and current developments, and using a minimum of formulas, Devlin celebrates the precision, purity, and elegance of mathematics.

Inni boken

Innhold

Counting
9
Reasoning and Communicating
37
Motion and Change
73
Shape
105
Symmetry and Regularity
145
Position
173
Postscript
209
Index
215
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Om forfatteren (1996)

Born in England in 1947 and living in America since 1987, Keith Devlin has written more than 20 books and numerous research articles on various elements of mathematics. From 1983 to 1989, he wrote a column on for the Manchester (England) Guardian. The collected columns are published in All the Math That's Fit to Print (1994) and cover a wide range of topics from calculating travel expenses to calculating pi. His book Logic and Information (1991) is an introduction to situation theory and situation semantics for mathematicians. Co-author of the PBS Nova episode "A Mathematical Mystery Tour," he is also the author of Devlin's Angle, a column on the Mathematical Association of America's electronic journal. Devlin lives in California, where he is dean of the school of science at Saint Mary's College in Morgana. He is currently studying the use of mathematics to analyze communication and information flow in the workplace.

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