Description: |
Presents a mix of games, puzzles, paradoxes, brainteasers, and riddles. This book mingles these with forays into ancient and modern mathematical thought, mathematical jokes, and inquiries into the great mathematical challenges. |
Synopsis: |
This is a new trove of entrancing numbers and delightful mathematical nibbles for adventurous minds. Ian Stewart, author of the bestselling "Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities", presents a new and magical mix of games, puzzles, paradoxes, brainteasers, and riddles. He mingles these with forays into ancient and modern mathematical thought, appallingly hilarious mathematical jokes, and inquiries into the great mathematical challenges of the present and past. Amongst a host of arcane and astonishing facts about every kind of number from irrational or imaginary to complex or cuneiform, we find out: how to organize chaos; how matter balances anti-matter; how to turn a sphere inside out (without creasing it...); why you can't comb a hairy ball; and, how to calculate pi by observing the stars. And we get some tantalizing glimpses of the maths of life and the universe. Mind-stretching, enlightening and endlessly amusing, Professor Stewart's new entertainment will stimulate, delight, and enthrall. |