An insightful reflection on the mathematical soul What do pure
mathematicians do, and why do they do it? Looking beyond the
conventional answers—for the sake of truth, beauty, and practical
applications—this book offers an eclectic panorama of the lives and
values and hopes and fears of mathematicians in the twenty-first
century, assembling material from a startlingly diverse assortment of
scholarly, journalistic, and pop culture sources. Drawing on his
personal experiences and obsessions as well as the thoughts and
opinions of mathematicians from Archimedes and Omar Khayyám to such
contemporary giants as Alexander Grothendieck and Robert Langlands,
Michael Harris reveals the charisma and romance of mathematics as well
as its darker side. In this portrait of mathematics as a community
united around a set of common intellectual, ethical, and existential
challenges, he touches on a wide variety of questions, such as: Are
mathematicians to blame for the 2008 financial crisis? How can we talk
about the ideas we were born too soon to understand? And how should
you react if you are asked to explain number theory at a dinner party?
Disarmingly candid, relentlessly intelligent, and richly entertaining,
Mathematics without Apologies takes readers on an unapologetic guided
tour of the mathematical life, from the philosophy and sociology of
mathematics to its reflections in film and popular music, with detours
through the mathematical and mystical traditions of Russia, India,
medieval Islam, the Bronx, and beyond.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781400885527
Publisert
2017
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter