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Winner of the 1983 National Book Award! "...a perfectly marvelous book about the Queen of Sciences, from which one will get a real feeling for what mathematicians do and who they are. The exposition is clear and full of wit and humor..." - The New Yorker (1983 National Book Award edition) Mathematics has been a human activity for thousands of years. Yet only a few people from the vast population of users are professional mathematicians, who create, teach, foster, and apply it in a variety of situations. The authors of this book believe that it should be possible for these professional mathematicians to explain to non-professionals what they do, what they say they are doing, and why the world...
Intermediate-level survey covers remainder theory, convergence theorems, and uniform and best approximation. Other topics include least square approximation, Hilbert space, orthogonal polynomials, theory of closure and completeness, and more. 1963 edition.
Methods of Numerical Integration, Second Edition describes the theoretical and practical aspects of major methods of numerical integration. Numerical integration is the study of how the numerical value of an integral can be found. This book contains six chapters and begins with a discussion of the basic principles and limitations of numerical integration. The succeeding chapters present the approximate integration rules and formulas over finite and infinite intervals. These topics are followed by a review of error analysis and estimation, as well as the application of functional analysis to numerical integration. A chapter describes the approximate integration in two or more dimensions. The final chapter looks into the goals and processes of automatic integration, with particular attention to the application of Tschebyscheff polynomials. This book will be of great value to theoreticians and computer programmers.
A memoir of mathematician Philip Davis's life and encounters, some actual and some imaginary, with a number of mathematicians and historical figures. His message focuses on the idea that mathematics can bring people into contacts with each other across centuries, oceans, and cultural difference. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The seventeen thought-provoking and engaging essays in this collection present readers with a wide range of diverse perspectives on the ontology of mathematics. The essays address such questions as: What kind of things are mathematical objects? What kinds of assertions do mathematical statements make? How do people think and speak about mathematics? How does society use mathematics? How have our answers to these questions changed over the last two millennia, and how might they change again in the future? The authors include mathematicians, philosophers, computer scientists, cognitive psychologists, sociologists, educators and mathematical historians; each brings their own expertise and insights to the discussion. Contributors to this volume: Jeremy Avigad Jody Azzouni David H. Bailey David Berlinski Jonathan M. Borwein Ernest Davis Philip J. Davis Donald Gillies Jeremy Gray Jesper Lützen Ursula Martin Kay O’Halloran Alison Pease Steven Piantadosi Lance Rips Micah T. Ross Nathalie Sinclair John Stillwell Hellen Verran
In this introduction to Spirals: From Theodorus to Chaos, Phil Davis writes, To me, mathematics has always been more than its form, or its content, its logic, its strategies, or its applications. Mathematics is one of the greatest of human intellectual experiences, and as such merits and requires a rather liberal approach. He takes just such an approach in this book inspired by the Hedrick Lectures of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Mathematical Association of America. Although loosely organized around the study of a difference equation that Davis dubs Theodorus of Cyrene, the book takes us on an eclectic whirlwind tour of history, philosophy, anecdote and, of course, mathematics. Incorporating the old and the new, the proved and the conjectural, Davis examines Theodorus in light of the mathematical concerns that have grown and cha.
From the Preface: This book is addressed to all who are curious about the nature of mathematics and its role in society. It is neither a text book nor a specialists' book. It consists of a number of loosely linked essays that may be read independently and for which I have tried to provide a leitmotif by throwing light on the relationship between mathematics and common sense. In these essays I hope to foster a critical attitude towards both the existence of common sense in mathematics and the ambiguous role that it can play.
The author, noting that basic facts about circulant matrices and its relationship to the Discrete Fourier Transform were rediscovered over and over again, summarized these facts in 1979. Circulant matrices have since have since played an increasingly large role in applications and algebraists, numerical analysts, combinatorialists and physicists have pushed forward the development of generalized circulants. Such matrices are now often seen as special instances of structured or patterned matrices. The outgrowth of the simple notion of a circulant matrix has therefore been both vast and profound. Readers who are interested in applications or generalizations of circulants beyond what is given in this volume may also find a list of publications (and their bibliographies) to be of use.
Explores the foundations of mathematics, looking at the history and philosophy of the field, and includes biographical sketches of people who have made mathematics their life's work
This unique collection contains extensive and in-depth interviews with mathematicians who have shaped the field of mathematics in the twentieth century. Collected by two mathematicians respected in the community for their skill in communicating mathematical topics to a broader audience, the book is also rich with photographs and includes an introdu