Mathematics Minus Fear: How to Make Math Fun and Beneficial to Your Everyday Life

Lawrence Potter

Pegasus | 2012 | 416 páginas | rar - epub | 2,1 Mb

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How can math help you bet on horses or win in Vegas? What’s the foolproof way to solve Sudoku? How can probability teach you to calculate your chances of survival in Russian roulette?           

In this irreverent and entertaining guide to mathematics, Lawrence Potter takes the fear out of everything from long division to percentages. Using fascinating puzzles and surprising examples, from M.C. Escher to Pascal, he shows us how math is connected with the world we encounter every day, from how the VAT works to why weather forecasts are wrong, from winning at Monopoly to improving your mental arithmetic. Along the way you’ll also discover who invented numbers, whether animals can count, and what nuns have to do with multiplication.

Contents
Introduction: WHY?
PART ONE: NUMBERS IN YOUR HEAD, FIGURES ON PAPER
1    Small Steps
2    How Many Fingers?
3    Outside the Supermarket
4    Putting Two and Two Together
5    Go Forth and Multiply
6    ‘Countdown’
7    Putting Numbers to Paper
8    Borrowing and Carrying
9    Long, Long Multiplication
0    Long Division Explained
11    Checking It All Adds Up
PART TWO: DIFFERENT KINDS OF NUMBER
1    Kit-Kats and Kosher
2    A ‘Ryche Shepemaster’
3    Proportion has its Problems 1
4    Proportion has its Problems 2
5    Colouring in Pizzas
6    What the Egyptians Did
7    Equivalent Fractions
8    Adding Fractions on Paper
9    Turn it Upside-Down and Multiply
10    What is the (Decimal) Point?
11    Manipulating Decimals
12    One Hundred Percent
13    Something of Interest
14    Prudence is a Virtue
    Two Hundred Percent
PART THREE: FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN
1    Algebra and Broken Bones
2    Doing the Same to Both Sides
3    Change All the Signs
4    False Assumptions
5    The Logic Behind Simultaneous Equations
6    Squabbling Schoolboys
7    Algebra is Democracy
8    The Saving of Charlie
PART FOUR: CHANCE WOULD BE A FINE THING
1    High Expectations for Probability
2    It’s a Load of Balls
3    Muddy Waters
4    It’s Not All About Numbers
5    The Weather Forecast is Wrong
6    Back to the Classroom
7    Putting Probability into Practice
8    Vegas, Baby!
9    The Law of Large Numbers
10    Gambling with Life Insurance
CLOSURE
APPENDIX A: Dividing Fractions
APPENDIX B: Putting Sudoku to Bed
APPENDIX C: Answers to Puzzles
Puzzle Sources and Bibliography

Notable women-in mathematics : a biographical dictionary

Charlene Morrow eTeri Perl

Greenwood |1998 | 318 páginas | rar - pdf | 24,2 Mb

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This volume features substantive biographical essays on 59 women from around the world who have made significant contributions to mathematics from antiquity to the present. Designed for secondary school students and the general public, each profile describes major life events, obstacles faced and overcome, educational and career milestones—including a discussion of mathematical research in non-technical terms—and interests outside of 2 promotics. Although the collection includes historical women, the emphasis is on contemporary mathematicians, many of whom have not been profiled in any previous work. The work also celebrates the contributions of minority women, including 10 African-American, Latina, and Asian mathematicians.

Written by practicing mathematicians, teachers and researchers, these profiles give voice to the variety of pathways into mathematics that women have followed and the diversity of areas in which mathematics can work. Many profiles draw on interviews with the subject, and each includes a short list of suggested reading by and about the mathematician. Most mathematicians profiled stress the value, importance, and enjoyment of collaborative research, contradicting the prevailing notion that doing good mathematics requires isolation. This collection provides not only a substantial number of role models for girls interested in a career in mathematics, but also a unique depiction of a field that can offer a lifetime of challenge and enjoyment.

CONTENTS

Introduction xi

Maria Gaetana Agnesi 1

Andrea Bertozzi 6

Lenore Blum 11

Sylvia Bozeman 17

Marjorie Lee Browne 21

Leone Burton 25

Fan King Chung 29

Ingrid Daubechies 34

Emilie de Breteuil du Chatelet 38

Etta Zuber Falconer 43

Joan Feigenbaum 47

Elizabeth Fennema 51

Herta Taussig Freitag 56

Sophie Germain 62

Evelyn Boyd Granville 66

Mary Gray 71

Gloria Conyers Hewitt 76

Grace Brewster Murray Hopper 80

Rhonda Hughes 85

Joan Hutchinson 90

Hypatia 94

Nancy Kopell 98

Sofya Korvin-Krukovskaya Kovalevskaya 102

Christine !..add-Franklin 107

Anneli Lax 113

Gilah Chaya Vanderhoek Leder 118

Emma Trotskaya Lehmer 123

Ada Augusta Byron Lovelace 128

Vivienne Maione-Mayes 133

Dusa Waddington McDuff 137

Marie-Louise Michelsohn 142

Cathleen Synge Morawetz 147

Emmy Noether 152

Karen Parshall 157

Bernadette Perrin-Riou 161

Harriet Pollatsek 164

Cheryl Praeger 169

Mina Spiegel Rees 174

Ida Rhodes 180

Julia Bowman Robinson 185

Judith Roitman 190

Mary Ellen Rudin 195

Mary Beth Ruskai 200

Cora Sadosky 204

Alice Turner Schafer 209

Doris Wood Schattschneider 214

Charlotte Angas Scott 219

Marjorie Wikler Senechal 225

Lesley Milman Sibner 229

Mary Fairfax Grieg Somerville 233

Pauline Sperry 238

Alicia Boole Stott 242

Olga Taussky-Todd 246

Jean Taylor

Chuu-Lian Terng

Karen Uhlenbeck

Marion Walter

Sylvia Young Wiegand

Grace Chisholm Young

Appendix 1: Dates of Birth

Appendix II: Countries of Employment and Origin

Index

About the Editors and Contributors

Livros relacionados:

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Women in mathematics por Lynn M Osen  Livro : Biografia Idioma: Inglês   Editora: Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press [1974]