The Secret Life of Numbers: 50 Easy Pieces on How Mathematicians Work and Think - Hardcover

Most of us picture mathematicians laboring before a chalkboard, scribbling numbers and obscure symbols as they mutter unintelligibly. This lighthearted (but realistic) sneak-peak into the everyday world of mathematicians turns that stereotype on its head.Most people have little idea what mathematicians do or how they think. It’s often difficult to see how their seemingly arcane and esoteric work applies to our own everyday lives. But mathematics also holds a special allure for many people. We are drawn to its inherent beauty and fascinated by its complexityâ€"but often intimidated by its presumed difficulty. The Secret Life of Numbers opens our eyes to the joys of mathematics, introducing us to the charming, often whimsical side, of the discipline. Divided into several parts, the book looks at interesting and largely unknown historical tidbits, introduces the largerthan- life practitioners of mathematics through the ages, profiles some of the most significant unsolved conjectures, and describes problems and puzzles that have already been solved. Rounding out the table of contents is a host of mathematical miscellanyâ€"all of which add up to 50 fun, sometimes cheeky, shorttakes on the field. Chock full of stories, anecdotes, and entertaining vignettes, The Secret Life of Numbers shows us how mathematics really does affect almost every aspect of lifeâ€"from the law to geography, elections to botanyâ€"and we come to appreciate the delight and gratification that mathematics holds for all of us.

• Front Matter
• I Historical Tidbits - 1 Lopping Leap Years
• 2 Is the World Coming to an End Soon?
• 3 Cozy Zurich
• 4 Daniel Bernoulli and His Difficult Family
• II Unsolved Conjectures - 5 The Mathematicians' Million Dollar Baby
• 6 A Puzzle by Any Other Name
• 7 Twins, Cousins, and Sexy Primes
• 8 Hilbert's Elusive Problem Number 16
• III Solved Problems - 9 The Tile Layer's Efficiency Problem
• 10 The Catalanian Rabbi's Problem
• 11 Even Infinite Series End Sometimes
• 12 Proving the Proof
• 13 Has Poincaré's Conjecture Finally Been Solved?
• IV Personalities - 14 Late Tribute to a Tragic Hero
• 15 The Unpaid Professor
• 16 Genius from a Different Planet
• 17 The Resurrection of Geometry
• 18 God's Gift to Science?
• 19 Vice-President of Imagineering
• 20 The Demoted Pensioner
• 21 A Grand Master Becomes Permanent Visiting Professor
• V Concrete and Abstract Matters - 22 Knots and "Unknots"
• 23 Knots and Tangles with Real Ropes
• 24 Small Mistakes May Have Large Consequences
• 25 Ignorant Gamblers
• 26 Tetris Is Hard
• 27 Groups, Monster Groups, and Baby Monsters
• 28 Fermat's Incorrect Conjecture
• 29 The Crash of Catastrophe Theory
• 30 Deceptive Simplicity
• 31 The Beauty of Dissymmetry
• 32 Random and Not So Random
• 33 How Can One Be Sure It's Prime?
• VI Interdisciplinary Potpourri - 34 A Mathematician Judges the Judges (Law)
• 35 Elections Aren't Decided by the Voters Alone (Political Science)
• 36 A Dollar Isn't Always Worth a Dollar (Insurance)
• 37 Compressing the Divine Comedy (Lingusitics)
• 38 Nature's Fundamental Formula (Botany)
• 39 Stacking Words Like Oranges and Tomatoes (Computer Science)
• 39 Stacking Words Like Oranges and Tomatoes (Computer Science)
• 41 Calculated in Cold Ice (Physics)
• 42 Built on Sand (Physics)
• 43 Buzzing Around Corners (Biology)
• 44 Inexperienced Traders Make the Market Efficient (Economics)
• 45 The Waggle Dance of Internet Servers (Computer Science, Biology)
• 46 Turbulent Liquids and Stock Markets (Finance, Economics)
• 47 Encrypting Messages with Candles and Hot Plates (Cryptography)
• 48 Fighting for Survival (Evolutionary Theory, Finance)
• 49 Insults Stink (Neurosciences, Economics)
• 50 Bible Codes: The Not So Final Report (Theology)
• References
• Index